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Outlook: Rickie Lee Jones: From life on the breadline to stardom

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Black and white photo of Rickie Lee Jones performing at a concert in 1979. She wears a beret and long fingerless gloves

24/10/2022 GMT

Rickie Lee Jones: From life on the breadline to stardom

BBC World Service - Outlook, Rickie Lee Jones: From life on the breadline to stardom

The US singer hit the big time in her early 20s, winning a Grammy for her first album

American singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones won a Grammy for her first album when she was just 24, but she was harbouring a secret that would haunt her for years.

Rickie Lee Jones was making up songs from the age of four. Part of a musical family, her grandparents were vaudeville stars in Chicago, she says music acted as an "accidental bridge" between her and the world. After running away from home at the age of fourteen, Rickie Lee eventually headed for California and set her heart on becoming a singer. 

She went from life on the breadline to fame, fortune and Grammy success at the age of 24. She tells Emily Webb about her remarkable life including her relationship with the singer Tom Waits, her secret battle to overcome heroin addiction in the late 1970s and why she feels that, as a woman, she faced more stigma as a result.

Her memoir is called Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour.

This programme was first broadcast in May 2021.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Emily Webb
Producer: June Christie

(Photo: Rickie Lee Jones performing in Paris, France in 1979. Credit: Bertrand Laforet/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)

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