Last Chance Texaco

MOJO MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song.

Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones, in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music.

With candour and lyricism, the 'Duchess of Coolsville' (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits, and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs - 'Chuck E's in Love,' 'Weasel and the White Boys Cool,' 'Danny's All-Star Joint' and 'Easy Money' - but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold, and tales of her fabled ancestors.

In this electrifying and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired pop culture for decades.

[A] gripping, lovely memoir...thrilling, funny, scary, sad, packed full of life and extraordinary characters....As a portrait of the artist as a young woman, this book could not be any more enthralling or fun to read. -- Nick Hornby The Believer
a vivid memoir that traces the arc of her often turbulent life from unsettled childhood to uneasy fame...If Last Chance Texaco is haunted by the long shadows of the past, it is also a story of forgiveness and acceptance...Reading her wild and wonderful book, one senses that, in a very real way, music was a calling that saved her life. -- Sean O'Hagan Observer
Throughout her pre-fame life she experienced moments of great adventure and shocking personal peril, all of which she has poured into her magnificent memoir...Very little seems off the table in this free-spirited book...It is at turns hair-raising, funny, melancholic and joyous. -- Ted Kessler The New Cue
In this raw and roving life story, Jones depicts a child who recognized her humanity and worth even when others wouldn't, and a woman whose confidence helped her rise above heroin addiction, music-industry sexism and the traumas of her youth. Washington Post
Candid, cosmic, so cool... An impassioned and cinematic trip through Jones's eventful life. I shouldn't be surprised that Jones manages to carry her originality, intimacy, and volcanic expressiveness into book form. Boston Globe
Terrific... The prose is rich and rhythmic, filled with lines that are pithy ('Rickie Lee is a Frank Capra movie that had been overtaken by Stanley Kubrick') and poetic ('childhood traumas leave their dirty footprints on the fresh white snow of our happy-ever-afters')... Jones is as fearless in prose as she is on stage. Minneapolis Star-Tribune
one of the most remarkable [memoirs] I've read from a musician, a first-person commentary on the life and early career of this extraordinary artist, full of romance and adventure, misadventure and indiscipline, anecdote and reflection - just the stuff we want from those free spirits who live the life so that we don't have to, inviting us to stand and watch in fascination, half admiring and half appalled. -- Richard Williams The Blue Moment
One of the most compelling memoirs I've ever read... What really sucks you in, and lifts you up, is the dazzling magic of her prose. Please Kill Me
This tender, fierce, intimate memoir is testament that Jones has lived a life as brave, idiosyncratic, and rich as her music - with love, heartbreak, addiction, and magic, sprinkled throughout. O, the Oprah magazine
What makes this an inspiring memoir is her absorbing storytelling, facility with language and fealty to integrity - commerce be damned. Mojo
In gorgeous prose ("I did drugs like I did everything else. On fire, with no back door") interspersed with her lyrics, this is as distinctive as she is, a rich, bracing, and candid memoir dancing with the love of language. Booklist (starred review)

Rickie Lee Jones has released seventeen albums, most recently 'Kicks' (2019). She lives in New Orleans.

A tender and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing and tenacious women in music. MOJO MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song. Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones, in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music. With candour and lyricism, the 'Duchess of Coolsville' ( Time ) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits, and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs - 'Chuck E's in Love,' 'Weasel and the White Boys Cool,' 'Danny's All-Star Joint' and 'Easy Money' - but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold, and tales of her fabled ancestors. In this electrifying and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired pop culture for decades.

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