Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and musician Rickie Lee Jones will perform an evening of musical reminiscing and exploration Friday, Aug. 21, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.
Her Birmingham show will take place at 8 p.m. in the ASC, 1200 10th Ave. South. Jones will be joined by her band: Catherine Ledoux, violin; François Plante, bass; Vincent Rehel, keyboard; Max Sansalone, drums; and Joss Tellier, guitar. Tickets are $29, $39 and $49. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org.
Jones exploded onto the pop scene in 1978 and made a career of fearlessly experimenting with her sound and persona on 15 critically acclaimed albums, according to her bio. With her distinctive voice, she has also recorded in rock, blues, R&B and jazz standard styles.
A cultural phenomenon, she graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine twice in two years and performed an unprecedented three songs during her second appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” She was nominated in four categories at the 22nd annual Grammy Awards in 1980: Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female; Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for “Chuck E.’s in Love”; and Best New Artist, for which she was awarded a Grammy.
She earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for “It’s Like This,” an album of covers including songs by The Beatles, Marvin Gaye and Steely Dan, in 2000; the album hit the Billboard Chart’s Top 200, as well as No. 10 on Top Internet Albums and No. 42 on Top Independent Albums. Jones has collaborated with artists as varied as Dr. John, Rob Wasserman, Leo Kottke, Lyle Lovett, Mike Watt, Ben Harper, Alison Krauss and the late Vic Chesnutt.
Her latest album and first new music in more than a decade, “The Other Side of Desire” is rooted in New Orleans, where it was written and recorded.
“This work is inspired by many years of sitting with all the events of my life until I had something to paint with,” Jones said. Jones moved to NOLA “to write and to live a different way than what I have known on the West Coast,” she said.
“Here is another record then, made of my imagination, and whatever else that has no words, using the clay of this place and the shapes of my eyes to form some kind of picture of my life, or my heart, that I alone can understand, and hopefully that others can enjoy,” Jones said of the work.