Listen! Ireland was cheering for its own son. I winked at an imaginary camera and whispered, “Thank you.” There were no stage lights, only the sun which was beginning its exit. I shyly approached the backstage guard: “I wonder if I might come in? I am Rickie Lee Jones.” He nodded as if he knew the name and said, “Well, let me ask.” A few minutes later I was welcomed into the festival and just in time to see Van Morrison. As she writes in her new memoir, Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour (Grove, April 6th), it was a “a trip I had been secretly planning since I was sixteen years old” - the year she’d discovered Morrison’s landmark album Astral Weeks. ![]() ![]() Then she heard that one of her heroes, Van Morrison, was performing at the Lisdoonvarna Festival in County Clare, Ireland, so she took a side trip before heading back to the States. She relocated to Paris and was kicking drugs. In the summer of 1983, at age 28, Jones’ life appeared to be settling down. She was also in an on-again, off-again relationship with fellow songwriter Tom Waits and had begun using heroin. ![]() Her debut album, 1979’s Rickie Lee Jones, had transformed her into America’s leading boho pop star, thanks to its hit “Chuck E.’s in Love.” She’d made the cover of Rolling Stone, and her followup record, 1981’s Pirates, was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of that year. ![]() By 1983, Rickie Lee Jones had had her share of surreal experiences.
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