Feb. 25--Rickie Lee Jones is in mid-conversation during a phone interview from her home in New Orleans. She suddenly interrupts her own stream of thought. "Steam is coming off my piano," she observes, laughing in bewilderment. "I used a wood product on it and the sun ..." Her voice trails off before returning to the interview. "Where was I?"
The singular Jones is, in fact, in the middle of a career renaissance. She made her name as the jazzy offbeat chanteuse in a beret whose hit single "Chuck E.'s In Love" propelled her to stardom in 1979. She won two Grammy Awards and twice graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Through the years and commercial ups and downs, Jones has toured steadily and released a string of albums. During the past 10 years, she's recorded cover songs but no new original material.
Jones left her home base in Los Angeles and relocated to New Orleans in 2013, where she recorded her crowd-funded album of new self-penned originals "The Other Side of Desire." Released in June on her own label the Other Side of Desire Records and distributed through Thirty Tigers, the striking and soulful song cycle has put the singer, 61, back in the spotlight. She plays City Winery on Thursday.
An evocative singer-songwriter with a wide-ranging mind, Jones called recently to talk about living in New Orleans, spirituality and aging artists. This is an edited transcript.
Q: "The Other Side of Desire" has been embraced by critics and fans. What has it been like touring these new songs?
A: It's exciting. Having new material feels different. Otherwise you're relying on people's connections to the past. People want to hear something you just wrote. It feels good.
Q: You lived in Los Angeles, then pulled up stakes for New Orleans. What prompted the move?
A: I lived in California and had no social life at all. I had a car and I drove somewhere and drove back. I don't know how it ended up that way. I lived there a long time. It's so comfortable. It's so pretty. But it takes an hour to travel 5 miles. Everybody really does live in their car. They have to because of the travel time. But I don't say that to feel sorry for myself. I just thought, how did it happen that a city is so cold that someone like me can't create a network? But people get older. They have their families. They have their children. As a single person my age, it's harder to create a network of people in a place like that.
I came to New Orleans and found friends right away. It was the thing I was seeking, where I walk out (of my house) and say "Hi!" That didn't happen in LA. People see each other there but they don't dare speak. You have to avert your eyes. If you're walking you're suspect. The police actually will arrest you if you jaywalk. It's not a friendly place for people who want to congregate.
Q: Why did you choose New Orleans as your new home base?
A: I'd been here before. The people who come here are attracted to the nonconformity of life in the city. People love hearing music. They stay out late. They sleep late. They parade around. They wear costumes. It's not quite like anywhere in the world. For musicians it fits right into our lifestyle.
Q: New Orleans is so much a part of this record. You recently tweeted, "The sudden music I so love everywhere in the city during Mardi Gras." In your album liner notes you write about how you "sleep and wake to the plaintive song of the river boats and the freight trains." How did the city influence your music?
A: I've always loved the faraway whistle of a train passing by. I find myself between a riverboat and a freight train that goes by about three times a day. It's like a lullaby for me. I feel very comfortable and connected to my past in the present time. I love all the young people and the ways in which they're reinterpreting the traditional music. That's what's going on. I love to be part of a town that has a tradition. That's hard to find in America, especially the America we live in now where everything is for sale and the little neighborhoods we knew in our lifetimes are wiped out.
Q: Before the new album, there was a span of 10 years where you didn't write new material. I'd heard you were suffering from writer's block. Is that true?
A: I don't like that term "writer's block" because there are times when you write and times when you don't. You write when you have something to say. It's very yin and yang, breathing in and breathing out. You have to get to a safe place where you can reflect and assess things. Do I have anything to say that is worthwhile and melodic? There have been years when I didn't have anything to say. But I don't really know about writer's block. I think it's a cycle of living and writing and not writing.
Q: Are you still in an upswing part of the cycle when it comes to songwriting?
A: Lately I've been writing a lot and not setting the pen down, so maybe I'll just keep writing now. Maybe as you get older you realize you need to keep squeezing this stuff out. Maybe when you're younger and you see all that time before you, you don't particularly feel the necessity to write because you have time to live and time to write. But as you get older, the blessing and the exciting thing is that your time is measured so maybe you work harder and faster.
Q: I heard you attend a Catholic church but you're not Catholic. Do you label yourself with any religion or particular type of spirituality?
A: It's ever changing. One day I'm totally Catholic. The next day I'm not. I am whatever I feel like being on any particular day and that's the truth. I don't really find that any prescribed thing could ever be a truth. It could be connected to something that could lead people to spirituality, but the awesome expanse of what we sense can't be put into words.
Q: There are more and more artists over 50 and 60 these days, especially female artists, who are making the best music of their careers. It seems hopeful that there's part of the artistic scene that is open to embracing older artists.
A: I think we're redefining that as a culture. When I was 12 years old, people died or retired and gave up the ghost. Now, maybe because we created rock 'n' roll, this generation is still very powerful. Or maybe it's just these individual women who say, "I'm not done. I have dignity in my age. I like who I am and how I look and I'm going to stand here in front of you and say that." Maybe one little banner at a time helps to change the whole course of where we're going.
Be who you are and the people who are meant to be healed or come toward that light will come. Don't try to be another. Everybody can do a lot of good in the world if they just be who they are. Everybody has a place.
Chrissie Dickinson is a freelance writer.
onthetown@tribpub.com
When: 8 p.m. Thursday
Where: City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph St.
Tickets: $50-$65; 312-733-9463 or www.citywinery.com
