This is really a book that is worth reading especially if you remember the song “Chuck E’s in Love”. Ricki Lee Jones life is one hell of a ride from childhood on to the night she performed that song on Saturday Night Live. Her life is, was unbelievable yet it is all their sex drugs rock and roll, a runaway being with an older man musician Tom Waits and of course her addictions. What I can say is that this is an honest look back on her life and I for one am surprised she has made it this far. A very good book at least for me, I think it is worth the read.

“Last Chance Texaco” is Jones’ autobiography, written with candor and lyrical grace. In it, she shows off her talents as a writer, focusing far more on her childhood and teenage hippie runaway years than in setting forth the details of her world tours or the difficulties of making each album as so many rock biographies do. This was clearly a deliberate choice on Jones’ part and it is what makes this book so interesting. Jones is not known for many chart hits, but it is not about the billboard charts, so those not entirely familiar with her body of work can open this book and enjoy as much as those more familiar with her lyrics and voice. She poetically explains the title of the book as that last station you see before you run out of gas and that it is “the light in the distance that never goes out, refuge for the tired traveler on a dark road.” She states that, when her young life “seemed to be nose-diving into the desert sands of Hollywood, going nowhere fast, [she] raised that Texaco star like a pirate flag.”

She begins her story by telling about her family, her mother, particularly, who grew up an orphan. Her mother’s escapades in the orphanage were like Grimm’s fairy tales, but no trolls or dragons could compete with the horrors. In her childhood, Jones lived in the harsh lands surrounding Phoenix, wandering the neighborhood with her invisible friends, “often frozen in some daydream when an invisible horse galloped down the street in a storm of wild fury, only to find [her] waiting and fearless.” She tells how she spent recess at school galloping past the other children until they all joined in. Her memories of her childhood are incredibly detailed and vivid such as the time she found a family of garter snakes under the house, watching “them the way children watch tattooed ladies at the circus, with a mixture of fear and delight.” What is remarkable is how well she recalls the small joys of childhood and invests them with so much emotion such as that each day was followed by a brighter sun set in a blaze of celestial colored sunsets that were erased by bigger and bigger full moons.”

But, do not mistake her childhood for one of privilege. The family moved like gypsies from Arizona to Chicago to the California coast, following jobs and dreams. Her father was often absent. Her mother moody: “To say my mother was unpredictable is to say that the ocean is salty. It was a given, but you went in there anyway, hoping to float on top of the waves.” The family had little money and there were strangers in cars enticing children with fake puppies and strange men peering in the windows, frightening the family.

One of themes of the story is luck and fate and how “[t]he biggest things in life often do not announce themselves, and warnings seem to only be audible in retrospect.” Also, her world was haunted by ghosts. Her brother’s crippling accident was one such moment of fate. But she explains that it was not just her brother who seemed taped together, but they were all broken, torn, and taped together and her family life “was something like a nuclear submarine waiting for the signal to destroy all known life.”

Her adolescence coexisted with the birth of rock and roll and hippie-world and much of her teenage years from fourteen years of age on were spent joyriding across state lines in stolen cars and living in caves in Big Sur with hippie communes, getting stoned and having sex. Up and down the coast she went with direction home, getting into one jam after another with little to lean on. Being a young hippie girl meant being used and abused by others often and beneath the painted rainbows and daisies, hippie life was not always joyful and often meant just being on the run.

These years formed much of the book and the successive years of record contracts and performing make up the tail end of the book and are in some ways not as poetic as the early childhood years and not as scary and on the edge as the teenage hippie years. It is a fascinating and candid autobiography with no attempt to sugar coat her life.

Enjoyed reading this account from the excellent musician, Rickie Lee Jones. Her memoir is incredibly evocative of a particular time and place - much like her music. Fascinating.

𝑳𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒐 is one of the most compelling, beautifully written memoirs I’ve ever read. I savoured every sentence.

With rich, candid prose, the idiosyncratic vocalist describes her childhood followed by her harrowing life as a hitchhiking runaway. She delves into her proclivity to illicit substances and her heroin addiction, the darker underbelly of the recording industry, love affairs — I was particularly interested in her turbulent relationship with Tom Waits — and her career and lifelong passion for music.

I loved discovering more about this iconic singer-songwriter who has spent a lifetime dancing with her muse. It’s a life story narrated by a dazzling storyteller.

A huge thank you to @NetGalley and @GroveAtlantic for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rickie Lee Jones has lived a very full life -- and not an easy one. From a difficult childhood (and her parents' childhoods) to trying to find success in music - she says it well when she says "fame brings no solace, no love, no wealth" - at least not sustainment of any of these. Her book is incredibly candid, honest and well-written. I still remember her singing on Saturday Night Love years ago, and she describes the back story on this vividly. Her descriptions about meeting Dr. John and Tom Waits is extremely memorable. She also does not shy away from revealing her issues with addiction or the sexism she faced in the music industry. Read this if you are looking for a well-written memoir from an iconic musician and artist.

This is a memoir that focuses more on Rickie's early days and her mother's youth. Don't come looking for insight into her performing years.

I struggled to get through the book - not only because I would lose interest - the formatting of the
e-copy made the writing difficult to follow.

I am a huge fan of Ricky Lee Jones and was very excited to read this book. Her poetic writing is beautiful but I found the book to quite boring.

I finished Rickie Lee Jones' autobiography last weekend, Last Chance Texaco.

I wasn't all that familiar with her personal life outside of some real generalities so this was so very insightful and interesting. Some of the writing was so poetic I felt like I was reading song lyrics in the making.

I have to say as someone that grew up when I did (which was much later than Ms. Jones' formative years) reading about her youth made me very uncomfortable. The narrative takes up about half the real estate of the book. I am not saying that her choices were bad, I mean really I think that they were her choices and I am in a way grateful for her openess and seeming giving nature to write about them. But... and here is my big but... reading about how basically she was a teenage runaway at 14 made me really sad for her childhood. She writes very openly about it. So many risks, so many chances and so many drugs. I don't want to dismiss that. It was really difficult to read for me at times. I had to set the book aside more than once.

The bulk of the book does to me read like a teenage road memoir and in that way it's interesting but for others it may not be. It wasn't triggering for me like it could be for others. I want to say this one more thing about that... her parents must have been so completely exasperated by that behavior and it really shows their deep love for their daughter to come and get her from where she landed as many times as they did. She was very fortunate. I don't want to say that she seemed ungrateful but she never outright says "wow was I glad my Dad drove from Arizona to California to get me when I called". That was sad for me to feel while I was reading this book. .

Her career and musical highlights crammed to the end and her later life really was what I think I was more familiar with. But of course only small elements of it so it was interesting to her side of the industry. The last part of her life (say the last 15 to 20 years) was jammed into the last chapter. No fault of the author, life sometimes just happens that way.

A few years back we were fortunate enough to see Rickie Lee Jones on tour performing some hits. Some I knew, others I didn't. At that time the book was supposed to be released and was not. So I have to think that the book was reedited and maybe the first part of the book was what would have been released. The very last chapters seemed like an afterthought, maybe it's because it's more about the present? I am not sure.

I so enjoyed hearing about her desires (from men to getting her publishing and owning her songs outright - musicians out there.... take a very valuable lesson here) and navigating the harsh and vicious music industry. She is a VERY strong woman, with a very individual voice that comes through. She has shared a life that many of us can not even remotely understand. It was fascinating. I also have to say when I finished the book, I called my parents and let them know how grateful I am for my time as a kid and how supportive they were. I was inspired by that so I had to call and say" thank you" because that seemed missing in this book. I may have missed it in my frustration not sure to be candid.

I was also a little bummed out that some credit wasn't given to photographers. Ms. Jones references a VERY well known photo and doesn't give credit to the photographer... so I will do so now... His name is Adrian Boot. His photography is amazing. Check him out too.

I so very much appreciate being provided with the preview copy... and I did enjoy the book enough to buy a hard copy for our library.

It is a recommended book. If anything to go back to a time that I don't have any life experience with. I watched her SNL appearances, I revisited the first album and I have learned so much more about an artist that I didn't know much about. It's a beautiful read about some difficult subjects that I know I will want to reread again.

I had never followed Rickie Lee Jones but was captivated by her story. Her memoir did not let me down. Her heroic and candid memoir is captivating. Filled with such vivid characters, I could picture each with every word. And follow her rise, and her fall and everything in between. Thank you #NetGalley the advanced copy.

I had heard of Rickie Lee Jones and remembered her popular song; but I can't really call myself a fan. I think if I were more of a fan rather than being casually interested, I would have enjoyed the book more. I found her writing style to be boring and sometimes confusing - it didn't feel 'real' to me.

I'm not saying this is a bad book; the burden is on me because I didn't have enough interest in the author to really care that much about the drug-fueled life that sounded so similar to other artists. I think fans of Rickie Lee Jones will enjoy the book a lot.

I requested this book as it sounded interesting, I enjoy memoirs – especially from musicians – and the cover looked good.

I don’t know Rickie Lee Jones. I mean, now I’ve read the book I know something about her but still, I can’t say I’d heard of her or heard her songs before. Yet, the other musicians she mentions are all relatively well-known. She says she was compared to Joni Mitchell (I love Joni Mitchell!) and was Tom Waits’ girlfriend. Should I have known who she was, or is she exaggerating her popularity a little in the book?

So, while there are many reviews from readers who enjoyed it a lot – and I understand that – this is definitely one for the fans. I found it fairly mediocre.

Her writing style was unusual – aiming for poetic, but often resulting in confusion. It was difficult to read at times.

The best part of the book was the beginning – stories of Rickie’s troubled childhood and growing up and moving around. However, it did seem that perhaps she didn’t know where to start as we get rather a lot of information about her parents’ upbringings (or lack of), and this idea of including every little detail is continued throughout the book. Many celebrity memoirs don’t include enough and leave you wanting more; this book arguably had too much and for me, the result was a bit too long.

The latter half of the book was quite interchangeable with that of other singers – sing, take, drugs, try to get signed… My interest definitely waned.

If you are already a fan, you’ll probably love it. If, like me, you’re only interested in getting to know who she is, you might prefer to give it a miss.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Press for this ARC.

Deeply sad, soaringly uplifting, Rickie Lee Jones's utterly absorbing memoir drew me in from the first page. The book is a road trip from a childhood no one should ever have endured, through years of being utterly lost, and finally into stardom. The emphasis is on the road she traveled, with her music success coming way at the end, and the bulk of her career quickly ridden past in summary--which is exactly what I wanted. When I read artist memoirs, I'm more interested in how they got there rather than recaps of what they did while in the public eye. The prose ranges from spare to poetic, very much like her lyrics, baring her soul and her history to the world.

Even if you're not familiar with her music, this memoir is a moving read of a lost and tormented soul who found herself.

One of the greatest artists of the last 40 years of American music opens her heart and tells her story. Rickie Lee Jones has been creating indelible, unforgettable music since the debut of her self-titled album in 1979. Her masterpiece PIRATES has more than stood the test of time. This autobiography lets her fans know the road has been bumpy, especially during a turbulent addiction to heroin, but this artist survived.

Read my review at The Arts Fuse! https://artsfuse.org/226097/book-review-last-chance-texaco-rickie-lee-jones-remembers/

This 100% wasn't the point of this book, but this book made me think about my father. He loved Rickie Lee Jones. I grew up with her music playing in the background of growing up.

Reading this brought me with Rickie, on the road, singing on stages, the Troubadour. .... told in that lyrical way that makes Rickie Lee Jones stand out among the others.

Thank you to netGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic Press for an advanced copy of this memoir.

The troubadour Rickie Lee Jones has written her first memoir Last Chance Texaco and the writing is as loose, full of imagery, quirky, and yet can still leaves a mark in your memory and soul as any one of her many songs. Ms. Jones led the life, trying not only to keep the music real, but her life and experiences just as real, sometimes to the better, more to the worse. From buyer hitchhiking , loves, drugs and other adventures Ms. Jones holds nothing back, try ing to share what she learned, sometimes the hard way, some in simple acts of acceptance. For fans of Ms. Jones and her music, for those interested in the California scene, musically and culturally. Dreamy in some instances, but interesting throughout.

Ricki Lee Jones broke music in 1979 with the freshest, coolest, emotionally charged work unlike anything else out there. As a young record store clerk I was lucky enough to score a promotional copy of her debut album and was blown away. This was an original voice. I was happy to see Ricki was publishing her autobiography, Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour.  I am always anxious to read music bios, even if often left with an empty disappointment after slogging through the childhood years and then enduring endless self-congratulatory accomplishments with little real insight.

Ricki is not just a songwriter, she is a writer. She tells her story, her family's story, with skill. There's a magic to her early childhood and the chord she strikes is so easy to identify with. You are jolted when the hardships hit and you pull for her when she struggles or stumbles on her journey, all the time getting insight into the songs she has set out for us. We see Ricki make it, we see her wrestle with heroin, and we see her conquer her demons and put her career into perspective (we get Tom Waits, too). She says show business is the business of showing your life to the world... and she does this impressively.

Five out of five stars. Thank you to Grove Atlantic, NetGalley, and Ricki Lee Jones for the Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for this review.  #LastChanceTexaco #NetGalley

One of the best memoirs I’ve read. Ms. Jones certainly lived a life years before she sold millions of records and won Grammy awards. I hope this book reaches a large audience.

I've loved Rickie Lee Jones since I was a kid, and I'm fascinated by women who were successful in the music industry before the music industry began to embrace women, so I was eager to read this book. As a songwriter, I assumed she'd also be a good writer, but this book had me alternately laughing, angry and weeping as she recounts her tumultuous childhood and equally tumultuous life in music in vivid prose. Highly recommended for music lovers and anyone interested in the lives of remarkable women.