Photo: Astor Morgan, ex artist website www.rickieleejones.com
Veteran US singer-songerwriter Rickie Lee Jones says attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) allowed her to develop her creativity from an early age.
Rickie, who has recorded albums over the past five decades spanning rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz, launched her new album Pieces of Treasure this week.
The jazz album goes back to her 70s roots, produced by Russ Titelman, who she reunited with after their notable collaboration in the 1980s.
The record is another major milestone in an illustrious career. But she tells Charlotte Ryan the album coming out feels kind of sad, as having the songs released was a letting go of something internal, and personal, into the public realm.
"You know, before they come out they're yours and your imaginary world you didn't want to let go. Like kids, they go off into the world, they have their own journey outside of your imagination. This is a kind of different record and people are are excited about it already."
The power of her imagination has been her strong and weakness as an artist. The recording process has always been something she struggled with, having ADHD. Fortunately this time around, producing the album was relatively swift, with each song completed in two studio takes. The album itself was produced in five days.
"That's pretty impressive, even for a jazz record," she says. So we were pretty happy with our stuff."
In contrast Flying Cowboys - released 1989 - took nine months because of the discipline of the producers, she says.
Discipline is something of a struggle for her. "I'm not really a producer - I'm not good. I'm creative, but I'm not the discipline it takes to say 'we'll do this again'.
She describes past studio time as "sometimes torturous".
"I was thinking of Flying Cowboys. You know, we were trying so hard to catch something... And with my attention deficit disorder, it's very hard for me to sit and do things over and over, lasting a long time. I just want to do it and get out. So it was that was very hard for me.
"I have a terrible time concentrating and staying with anything, certainly like the first record. I just lay down on the ground and went to sleep. It was just impossible for me to stay with it."
She is philosophical about her neurodiversity, seeing it as having benefied to her creativity in the past, as well as posing challenges.
"I think it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. I've realised that when I was a kid in school, that teachers would write notes and say, 'Ricky sits and stares out the window'.
"Because I can't concentrate on what you're saying, I just drift away to my own imaginary world. And that has served me well.
"Had I not had that I would have listened to what they said at school and not developed my wonderful imaginary world. But it is it is a very real thing, and I actually try to play online games and things to help me learn how to plan and follow through and focus."
Lee Jones songs are a snapshot of life at that particular time when written. Her most recently work is no different.
"Every one of them is a picture of who you are at that time," she says. "So, who I am at this time is a person who has, as much as I can, a happy and joyful time. And while it is about what you leave behind, at this point in life, it's really about living every day that you can as much as you can."
She says she's a lot calmer nowadays and able to appreciate her life and how far she has come.
"I'm on this side of the mountain and not that side where all life is coming and what will happen. I'm on the other side where I can says 'wow, what a great story. So I feel pretty good."
Lee Jones says she felt like a new person, a different character was entering the studio this time, more centred, more measured, seeing things anew.
"It was like there was somebody waiting for me in the studio. It wasn't a lifetime of making records - it was a brand new person stepping up to sing the songs," she says.
"Somebody described it as a little kid putting on on their parents old clothes. But there's something useful and extremely grown up about this persona, the voice that singing the songs. I like to talk about 'her' instead of 'me'. But I feel like she's, she's sultry. Whatever her age is, she's not taking it on the chin, it is not very serious for her. She's seen a lifetime of heartache, and she came up smiling. That's what it sounds like to be."
Lee Jones recalls one moment of heartache when she received a reply from 1990s electro outfit The Orb, who had used her vocals to their classic song Pink Fluffy Clouds. After writing a letter telling them they didn't have her permission to do so, the arrogance of the reply irked her.
"There was no lawsuit when they did it, as I was very broke at the time. The money it costs just to write the letter, so it was all I could do.
"I wrote a letter saying 'you guys have no permission to use my voice'. They wrote back the most insulting letter. And it was like, 'not only did we take it, but you're lucky we did, because a whole bunch of people are gonna hear it they've never heard of before'.
"Okay, but in the subsequent years, these guys have been obscene, I've read it in print, they were so glib, and insulting towards the people who didn't sue them... so they were bastards. And, and they took my thing and made a whole bunch of other versions. They've never sent anything. And I know, they made lots and lots of money."
