Rickie Lee Jones: ‘If You’re Happy, You See Happy. If You're Sad, You See Sad’

Rickie Lee Jones Photo Kirk West/Getty Images

I recently saw the legendary singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones perform at the Union Chapel, Islington. She’s 69, still full of vim, and it was a treat to catch her at such an intimate venue.

'You can't break the rules until you know how to play the game.'
Rickie Lee Jones

Playing acoustic guitar and piano, accompanied by a percussionist and keyboardist, Jones sings soulfully of love and loss; of drifters and dreamers; of ‘sad-eyed Sinatras,’ and Johnny the King who ‘walks these streets without her in the rain.’ And she relates how Chuck E ‘don’t come and PLP with me’. Her vocals are languid and jazz-inflected. Her stream-of-consciousness narratives are fragmented and impressionistic; conversational and colloquial.  

'I like words. Words are places, rooms, distant airs, thin and tropical. They make us feel and imagine we are more than our bodies.’

Wearing an embroidered silk jacket, Jones is a luminous presence, a latter-day troubadour, all smiles and charm - spotting a rainbow in the church lights, breaking into spontaneous song, telling stories of feckless boyfriends, New Orleans’ street culture and uncommon courtesy. 

Interviewer: Do you think we’re born musical?
Jones: I don’t know about we. I only know about me.

Jones teaches us to embrace life and all it has to offer, good and bad; to translate our experiences and encounters into our work; to be positively predisposed.

'A long stretch of headlights bend into I9.
They tiptoe into truck stops,
And sleepy diesel eyes.
Volcanoes rumble in the taxi, glow in the dark.
Camels in the driver's seat,
A slow, easy mark.
But you ran out of gas,
Down the road, a piece.
And then the battery went dead,
And now the cable won't reach.
It's your last chance
To check under the hood.
Your last chance,
She ain't soundin' too good.
Your last chance
To trust the man with the star
'Cause you've found the last chance Texaco
The last chance!’
'The Last Chance Texaco’

Jones performs on Saturday Night Live in April 1979. Credit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Jones was born into a musical family in Chicago in 1954. Her paternal grandfather, Frank ‘Peg Leg’ Jones, was a vaudevillian who sang and danced, played the ukulele and told jokes. Her grandmother was a dancer on the chorus line. Both her parents had been raised in orphanages, and her childhood was marked by upheaval, as her musician father took the family from state to state, trying to make a name for himself.

‘What were they running from? From cities, houses, and eventually, themselves, but they never got away from their difficult childhoods or their love for each other.’

The family settled for a time in Phoenix, Arizona, where Jones roamed the desert, rode horses and had adventures with imaginary friends. As she played games on the street, she sang songs from the hit show West Side Story.  

‘I drew a crowd! Music had built an accidental bridge between me and the world.’

Jones’ teenage years were characterised by recklessness and risk-taking. Ejected from high school, she ran away from home, lived in a cave, hitch-hiked, got arrested, and more besides.

'I spent most of my life in cars, vans and buses… For a long time, my solution to any problem, big or small, was to jump in the car and drive away from it.’

Eventually at 19 she landed up in Venice Beach, California, working menial jobs and singing in local bars and coffee shops to pay the rent. Hanging out with other creative mavericks, like Tom Waits, Lowell George and Dr John, she began to write her own songs.

In 1979 she released her stunning self-titled debut album to critical and commercial acclaim. With her long blond hair, toothy grin and beatnik beret, she was dubbed by Time magazine The Duchess of Coolsville.  

'How come he don't come and PLP with me
Down at the meter no more?
And how come he turn off the TV
And hang that sign on the door?
Well, we call, and we call,
"How come?", we say.
Hey, what could make a boy behave this way?
Well, he learned all of the lines now and every time
He don't, uh, stutter when he talks.
And it's true, it's true,
He sure has acquired this kind of cool and inspired sort of jazz when he walks.
Where's his jacket and his old blue jeans?
If this ain't healthy, it is some kinda clean.
But that means that Chuck E's in love,
Chuck E.'s in love.'
'Chuck E's in Love’

A string of other fine albums followed: ‘Pirates’ (1981), ‘The Magazine’(1984) and ‘Flying Cowboys’ (1989). Her work was at once deeply personal and yet also rooted in observed lives. Critically, she seemed to be addressing the audience directly.

‘I always thought about somebody else. I always wanted to talk to you…I want you to feel what I’m saying.’

Sadly Jones faced issues with addiction in the early part of her career. She also resented being boxed in and categorised by record labels, the press and the public. She needed to evolve in her own way.

‘For me in the first ten years I wanted to define myself and to change – both those things. It was a terrible burden for me.’
 
Having withdrawn from view to raise her daughter, Jones subsequently recorded several albums of sublime covers. She also explored electronica and jazz, and made an angry protest album.

'Some of us are born to live lives on an exaggerated scale.’

From her unstable childhood to her unreliable partners; from her uncomfortable relationship with the music industry to her quest for an independent private life, Jones faced a good many challenges. But she consistently demonstrated a compelling resilience, good humour and optimism.
 
'I’m an optimistic person. In spite of my recklessness and throwing myself on the fire, my nature is to make something good out of what happens.’
 
I was quite taken with this comment, which perhaps sums up her resolutely positive outlook:  

‘You see things out of your eyes. If you are happy, you see happy. If you're sad, you see sad.’

'She was pregnant in May,
Now they're on their way.
Dashing through the snow
To St. John's, here we go.
Well, it could be a boy,
But it's okay if he's girl.
Oh, these things that grow out of
The things that we give.
We should move to the west side
They still believe in things
That give a kid half a chance.’
‘Skeletons'

At the gig I attended, Jones recounted how she was recently introduced to Elton John at an industry event. Somewhat surprised when he kissed her, on the lips, twice, she burst into tears. At first she was confused by her own response - where did that come from? - and then she understood that, in that particular moment, she had been taken back to the inordinate joy that John’s songs had given her as a teenager.  

As Jones told this story, a lump formed in my throat. I realised that I feel the same way about her.

'I say this was no game of chicken.
You were aiming your best friend.
That you wear like a switchblade on a chain around your neck.
I think you picked this up in Mexico from your dad.
Now it's daddy on the booze,
And Brando on the ice.
Now it's Dean in the doorway,
With one more way he can't play this scene twice.
So you drug her down every drag of this forbidden fit of love.
And you told her to stand tall when you kissed her.
But that's not where you were thinking...
How could a Natalie Wood not get sucked
Into a scene so custom tucked?
But now look who shows up
In the same place
In this case
I think it's better
To face it.
We belong together.
We belong together.’
‘We Belong Together’

No. 489

Karaoke Strategy: Always Rehearse in Private Before You Perform in Public

Everett Shinn ‘Revue’ 1908

I confess I’m partial to a bit of karaoke.

I like the theatre of it, the amateurishness and enthusiasm. I like the cozy intimacy of the booth, the excited loading of the playlist, the sporadic arrival of the drink orders. I like it when Michelle sings Carly Simon, and Mike channels Bowie, and everyone joins in on the chorus to ‘Life on Mars.’ I like the muffled thunder of people chanting ‘Wonderwall’ next door. I like the way it celebrates both individuality and community; the way it helps everyone to remember and forget.

I’m only a moderate singer, but I enjoy joining in. And I have learned that it’s best to come to karaoke armed with a few tunes up your sleeve.

And so, when I was recently invited to a karaoke evening, I was prompt to perform my version of Orange Juice’s ‘Rip It Up.’ I know I can deliver this with a decent impersonation of Edwyn Collins’ refined vocal stylings, and with the added value of my awkward ‘80s dance-steps.

'When I first saw you,
Something stirred within me,
You were standing sultry in the rain.
If I could have held you,
I would have held you.
Rip it up and start again.’
Orange Juice, ‘Rip It Up’ (S R Greenaway / T W Collins)

Before too long, my slot at the microphone came round again, and I turned to another old favourite: Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘The Last Waltz’. I’ve long been charmed by its crooning evocation of 1960s dancehalls. It’s true, I struggle somewhat with the high notes. But it’s such a romantic sentiment that I’m sure no one notices…

'I wondered should I go or should I stay,
The band had only one more song to play.
And then I saw you out the corner of my eye,
A little girl, alone and so shy.
I had the last waltz with you,
Two lonely people together.
I fell in love with you,
The last waltz should last forever.’
Engelbert Humperdinck, 'The Last Waltz’ (J B Mason / L D Reed)

As the evening wore on, my supply of known numbers was running out. I couldn’t find my signature song, The Smiths’ ‘Please, Please, Please,’ on the machine. And I was conscious that my picks had, to this point, been somewhat antique.

Karaoke is very much about self-expression, not just in the way that you perform, but in the songs you select. Perhaps my repertoire was betraying my late-Boomer life-stage.

Now the microphone was coming round to me again. What was I to do? Maybe I should choose something more current and contemporary; something that demonstrated I was still in touch with popular culture?

I’ve always had a soft spot for Lana Del Ray’s melancholic chansons noires, and in particular her 2011 classic ‘Video Games.’ I’d not sung this before, but it seemed in a low enough register, and, at that particular moment, lubricated a little by industrial Malbec, I was sure I could give it a go…

Sadly, when the tune came up, I discovered that, in truth, I only really knew the chorus. As the lyrics scrolled by, I sought desperately for some residual recollection of a melody. To no avail. And so I delivered most of the song in a rather awkward monotone. This was more woeful butchery than wistful beauty.  

I sensed the audience’s attention waning, switching to the next item on the playlist, to the next singer on the stage.  

I had failed.

'It's you, it's you, it's all for you,
Everything I do.
I tell you all the time,
Heaven is a place on earth with you.
Tell me all the things you wanna do.
I heard that you like the bad girls.
Honey, is that true?’
Lana Del Ray, ‘Video Games’ (E Grant / J Parker)

I guess the conclusion here is that we should never attempt a karaoke tune without previously establishing that it is within our skillset - that we can perform the verse and the bridge, as well as the chorus. Preparation pays.

As in karaoke, so in life and work. We are often encouraged to follow our intuition, to trust our gut. But I think we should only do this up to a point.

Once we have listened to our heart, we should then pay heed to the practicalities; run through the rationalities. We should always rehearse in private before we perform in public.

For my last number I decided to return to more familiar territory. I belted out Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ with relief and recognition. Yes, I was playing it safe. But I’m a man of a certain age, of limited vocal talents. I’m comfortable with that. And you can tell everybody, that this is my song.   

‘It's a little bit funny,
This feeling inside.
I'm not one of those who can easily hide.
I don't have much money, but boy if I did,
I'd buy a big house where we both could live.
And you can tell everybody
This is your song.
It may be quite simple, but
Now that it's done.
I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind,
That I put down in words,
How wonderful life is
While you're in the world.’
Elton John, ‘Your Song’ (B Taupin, E John)

No. 478

Dionne Warwick: Driving in Style Down the Middle of the Road

Dionne Warwick posed in Hyde Park, London in 1965. Photo : David Redfern/Redferns

‘You cannot separate the voice from the heart. Dionne’s music inspired people to see and look forward to the best part of themselves.’
Stevie Wonder

I recently watched an entertaining documentary about the career of sublime singer Dionne Warwick. (‘Don’t Make Me Over’, directed by Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner, 2021)

'Years ago I learned to be totally responsible for Dionne Warwick. I will not wait for opportunities. I will create them.’

Through the ‘60s and ‘70s Warwick performed peerless versions of Bacharach & David songs - classics like ‘Don't Make Me Over’, ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ and ’Walk On By’; ‘Alfie’, ‘A House Is Not a Home’ and ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose.’ In the ‘80s she successfully re-launched her career, scoring more hits and winning countless awards. And she went on to be an effective activist and campaigner.

‘They’re not gonna tell me what to do.’

Warwick was the mistress of a particular form of American popular song. Achieving sustained mainstream success is deceptively difficult. She teaches us how it can be done with style and grace.

'Anyone who ever loved
Could look at me
And know that I love you.
Anyone who ever dreamed
Could look at me
And know I dream of you,
Knowing I love you so.
Anyone who had a heart
Would take me in his arms and love me too.
You couldn't really have a heart
And hurt me like you hurt me,
And be so untrue.
What am I to do?’
‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ (B Bacharach / H David)

Born in 1940, Marie Dionne Warrick was raised in a middle-class neighbourhood in East Orange, New Jersey. Her mother worked in an electrical factory and her father was a Pullman porter.

'My parents gave me stability and a belief in myself and in all the possibilities life has to offer. I was told the only limitations I would ever face were those I placed upon myself.’

Music was central to Warrick’s life from the start. Her mother, Lee Drinkard, managed a gospel group. Accomplished vocalist Cissy Houston (mother of Whitney) was her aunt and lived in the same family home. Legendary opera singer Leontyne Price was a cousin.

'I come from a singing family, and, as is said, 'the apple does not fall far from the tree.'’

Warrick sang in church where her grandfather was a minister. At the age of 6, when she was invited to stand on some books to perform ‘Jesus Loves Me,’ she received her first standing ovation. At the age of 17 she took the stage at the famously challenging Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater Harlem.

‘If you think it, you can do it.’

Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach at Pye studios in London. 29th November 1964. (Photo by Bela Zola/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

After finishing High School in 1959, Warrick studied at the Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut. There she learned to read, play and write music, a technical education that would sustain her throughout her career. At the same time she found work singing backing vocals for recording sessions in New York City.

In 1962 Warrick was spotted at one of these sessions by songwriter Burt Bacharach, and hired to record demos of songs he had written with lyricist Hal David.

‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with my education – because my mother would kill you, and me too.’

Warrick hoped that one of the demos, ‘Make It Easy on Yourself,’ would become her first single release. When she discovered Bacharach & David had given the song to another artist, Jerry Butler, she was not happy.

‘That didn’t sit too well with me. So when I got to New York I kind of let them know: ‘Ahah. You don’t do that to me. One thing I want you both to understand is there’s something you can never do to Dionne – that’s try to make her over. So don’t even think it.’’

Bacharach & David apologised and were inspired by Warrick’s rebuke to write her first hit, 1962’s ‘Don't Make Me Over.’ Warrick's name was misspelled Warwick on the record label and she adopted the new construction thereafter.

'Don't make me over
Now that I'd do anything for you.
Don't make me over
Now that you know how I adore you.
Don't pick on the things I say, the things I do,
Just love me with all my faults
The way that I love you.
I'm begging you.’
‘Don’t Make Me Over’ (B Bacharach / H David)

Touring on the Chitlin’ Circuit in the American South, Warwick experienced the indignities of racism – only being allowed to use Black hotels, restaurants and toilets; not feeling safe to stay in certain towns; performing to segregated audiences.

At one such gig Sam Cooke advised her before she went on stage: ‘Do not turn your back on the white folk.’

Young Warwick wasn’t willing to comply.

‘First thing I did when I went out there, I walked straight to the band and turned my back and played to the ones that looked like me.’

On another occasion Warwick made a point of adapting the lyrics to Ray Charles’ ‘What I Say’.

'Tell your mama, tell your pa, we're gonna integrate Arkansas.'

She was warned by the police that she had minutes to get out of town.

'I refuse to allow prejudice to defeat me.’

Bigotry couldn’t stop Warwick’s progress. She scored hit after hit in the US and abroad, touring Europe to great acclaim. Marlene Dietrich announced her on stage at the Paris Olympia and introduced her to the world of couture.

‘She took me shopping, much to the chagrin of my accountants.’

Warwick was not a raw-voiced R&B or gospel artist in the traditional sense. Rather her singing was light and elegant. Her voice floated above and around the instrumentation. It could be delicate, soft, and then startlingly robust. It was always under complete control.

Warwick’s technical skills enabled her to navigate Bacharach’s complex compositions. Indeed she inspired him to write more challenging tunes.

‘To sing Bacharach’s melodies you almost had to have a music education, just to read what he wrote – different registers, time signatures. The man marched to his own drummer. If you wanted to be part of that, you had to march with him.’

With her high cheekbones and elegantly arched eyebrows; with her immaculate hair and chic wardrobe, Warwick was a class act. Her success took her to places that few Black performers had been before – to Vegas and prime time TV shows, hosted by the likes of Ed Sullivan, Perry Como and Danny Kaye. Some critics responded to her sweet voice, clear articulation and pop material by labelling her crossover or middle-of-the-road. Some underestimated her talent.

What strikes me about the Warwick story is that, while it’s relatively easy to stay niche and narrow in your appeal, it is incredibly hard to succeed in the mainstream. She demonstrates that to drive in the middle of the road, you need a rare combination of talent, technique and tenacity. Yes, she sang with poise and grace. But she was precise and meticulous in her delivery, strong and resolute in her engagement with the industry.

'I am an outspoken person. I believe in what I say.’

The mental toughness that helped get Warwick to the top was also very much evident in her later career.

With the chart dominance of disco in the late ‘70s, Warwick considered retirement. She was persuaded back to the recording studio by Clive Davis at Arista.

'You may be ready to give the business up, but the business is not ready to give you up.'
Clive Davis

There followed another string of hits, including ‘I’ll Never Love This Way Again’ and ‘Heartbreaker.’

‘I’m a messenger and I’m carrying messages of love and hope.’

Warwick was one of the first voices in the music business to speak out about the AIDS crisis, recording the benefit single 'That's What Friends Are For' for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) (alongside Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder). Appointed a health ambassador by Ronald Reagan, she prompted him to say the word AIDS in public for the first time.

‘My guide is the bible. Everybody is your brother’s keeper. Everybody. I don’t care who you are – white, black, green, orange and different. You can be striped and you’re still my sister or brother – by the rules of god. And I’ve got to do what is right to help you.’

Warwick subsequently addressed the issue of misogynist lyrics in gangster rap, taking to task the likes of Snoop Dogg, Tupac and Death Row Records’ Suge Knight.

‘You don’t call me out of my name. You don’t know me that well.’

In a 60-year career Dionne Warwick has sold over 100 million records, she has had 56 chart hits and won 6 Grammy Awards. She has been a model of mainstream success – tender, technical and tough. No one dared make her over.

'If you see me walking down the street
And I start to cry each time we meet,
Walk on by, walk on by.
Make believe
That you don't see the tears,
Just let me grieve
In private, because each time I see you
I break down and cry,
And walk on by.’
‘Walk On By’ (B Bacharach / H David)

No. 416

‘Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word’: We Need Nice People for Nasty Times

Passersby by Lantian D

At the gym the bloke with the next locker silently moves his kit out of my way without looking up at me. At the shop a woman talks on her mobile as she pays. Down the pub a guy checks his phone as he pisses. A man on a bike shouts at me as he turns a corner. Someone’s eating a bacon sandwich on the tube. He’s sat next to a ‘manspreader.’ There are kids cursing on the top deck of the bus. There’s pizza packaging on the pavement. Queueing seems to be the hardest concept. And sorry seems to be the hardest word.

‘What do I do to make you want me?
What have I got to do to be heard?
What do I do when it’s all over,
And sorry seems to be the hardest word?

It’s sad, so sad.
It’s a sad, sad situation.
And it’s getting more and more absurd.’

‘Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word,’ Elton John (Elton John & Bernie Taupin)

Of course, I’m just a grumpy old man. And I live in London. But it seems sometimes that we’ve lost our sense of civic pride; of community; of togetherness. We’re all sharp elbows and hard stares; hoodies and headphones. We’ve become anti-social media addicts, selfie narcissists, smartphone lemmings. Oh, for the cordial and considerate, the kind and courteous. Oh, for the gentle smile, the nod of recognition, the quiet word. If only we could remember that shyness is nice; politeness is precious; and ‘manners maketh man.’

It seems to me we need nice people for nasty times.

To get a job at my former Agency, BBH, it was stipulated that you had to be ‘good and nice.’ This was an elegantly simple recruitment policy. And critically it recognized that an employee’s impact on culture is as important as his or her impact on clients - because culture builds companies; and the foundations of culture are day-to-day civility, mutual respect and thoughtfulness.

I particularly like the use of the word ‘nice’ in this context. It sounds soft. It suggests the candidate must be gentle and genial, amiable and agreeable. ‘Nice’ seems alien to the hard-nosed, cut-throat world of commerce. Surely ‘nice guys finish last.’ But, on the contrary, today’s networked age is all about team, partnership, collaboration and cooperation. Empathy, emotional intelligence and listening skills are commercially critical. We need to get along if we want to get on. Nowadays nice guys finish first.

Perhaps marketers too should be mindful of ‘nice.’ So many modern brands celebrate their high-minded Purpose. They’re ‘passionate’ about people and the planet; ‘in love’ with customers and the category. They’re ‘fanatical’ about good service. But maybe they should calm down a bit. I don’t want my brands to be passionate or fanatical; I’d rather they were polite and well mannered. I don’t want my brands to love me; I just want them to be nice.

I was once given a signed copy of Harry Redknapp‘s autobiography. The erstwhile West Ham player and manager was a wily tactician and loveable rogue. He had signed the book with a simple message for me: ‘Nice one!’

Exactly.

‘What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give,
Or are we meant to be kind?’

Alfie, Dionne Warwick (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)

No. 133