Traffic From Paradise Rickie Lee Jones

• 1Pink Flamingos06:32
• 2Altar Boy02:27
• 3Stewart's Coat04:32
• 4Beat Angels04:11
• 5Tigers05:49
• 6Rebel Rebel04:40
• 7Jolie Jolie04:27
• 8Running From Mercy06:03
• 9A Stranger's Car02:55
• 10The Albatross03:16
• Total Runtime44:52

Info for Traffic From Paradise

From the moment she first appeared in front of us on 'Saturday Night Live' in 1979, Rickie Lee Jones has challenged her listeners and the establishment with an absorbing musical vision that defies border and classification. She rocked the culture of singer-song writerdom with her refusal to conform to the stayed and careful eloquence of the folk rock generation that came before her. Neither punk nor pop, she tottered on a thread of her own device, jazz — the old musical kind, and R&B — the Motown thread that permeates her work.

Her self-titled debut album, released by Warner Bros. in March 1979, had an immediate and profound impact in the music world and the culture at large, ultimately becoming a multi-million selling hit. Jones secured five Grammy Award nominations, including Best New Artist, which she won at the January 1980 ceremony. She won a second Grammy in 1989 for Best Jazz Performance for her duet with long time pal Dr. John on 'Making Whoopee.'

Traffic from Paradise, released in 1993, features contributions from Leo Kottke, David Hildago and Jim Keltner among others. Traffic from Paradise, her sixth full-length studio effort overall, was produced, mixed and recorded by an all-female crew and has the energy less of a committed feminist than a woman who has grown comfortable in her skin, and who once said that her vulnerability as an artist, and as a woman, made convention seem like the least of her problems.

The meditative and highly spiritual 10-song set consists of all Jones originals with a lone cover of David Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel' being the only exception.

Rickie Lee Jones, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Dulcimer, Keyboards, Vocals
David Baerwald, Electric Guitar
Sal Bernardi, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
Brad Dutz, Percussion, Marimba, Tarkas, Bodhran
David Hidalgo, 8 String Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Leo Kottke, 6 and 12-String Guitar, Slide Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
John Leftwich, Bass, Cello, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
Jim Keltner, Drums
Alex Acuna, Drums, Congas
Efrain Toro, Percussion
Doug Lyons, French Horn
Dean Parks, Electric Guitar
Brian Setzer, Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Bobby Bruce, Violin
Syd Straw, Backing Vocals
Teresa Tudury, Backing Vocals
Lyle Lovett, Backing Vocals

Recorded at Conway Recording Studios, Oceanway Studios and Signet Sound Studios, Los Angeles, CA
Mastered at The Mastering Lab, Los Angeles, CA

Digitally remastered

Rickie Lee Jones
is one of the most acclaimed and talented singer-songwriters of our time. Her career spans nearly three decades of incredible musical output spanning many genres: folk, rock, jazz, soul, spoken word and pop. Always fearless, Rickie Lee has consistently pushed her seemingly limitless creative abilities, as well as the music industry's envelope.

Arriving on the scene in 1979, her first self-titled album, released that year, received five Grammy nominations. Her nominations included Best Song for 'Last Chance Texaco', Best Album, Best Pop Vocal and Best Rock Vocal. As it happened, she won Best New Artist, and her career was launched. Only four months after her debut, Rickie Lee was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, and 18 months later she was featured on the cover again.

Jones released Pirates in 1981 and then Girl At Her Volcano in 1983, which offered listeners a challenging mixture of jazz and pop. 1984 saw the release of The Magazine, whereupon she took a five-year hiatus and moved to Paris. Rickie Lee returned in 1988 to have her only child, Charlotte, and to write Flying Cowboys with Steely Dan and producer/musician Walter Becker on her new label, Geffen. While 'Satellites' was a 1989 hit, she found real success with her duet with long time pal Dr. John on 'Making Whoopie', which won both of them a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. She had also been nominated the year before for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal for her rendition of 'Autumn Leaves' on Rob Wassermann's Duets.

Her next two records, Traffic From Paradise (1993) and Naked Songs (1995) were her final Geffen releases. Ghostyhead, released in 1997, is considered by many fans to be her best record and certainly among her most unusual, using ambient and aggressive rhythm tracks against which she recited impressionistic lyrics. Ghostyhead was followed by another extreme on It's Like This, an intimate and loving album of covers of a wide gamut of popular songs, from 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys' to 'Up the Lazy River'. Continuing Rickie Lee's own tradition of mixing pop and jazz, It's Like This featured Taj Mahal, Joe Jackson, Ben Folds, and others and was nominated for the Grammy for Best Pop Album in 2000.

The bootleg Live at Red Rocks was bought by Artemis and released in 2001, and 2003 saw the release of The Evening of My Best Day on V2. Iconoclastic guitarist Neils Kline remarked that this record 'was the greatest non-selling record of the decade'. However, Rickie Lee's records do continue to sell, year after year. Her latest release is a three-CD anthology honoring her career to date on Rhino, Dutchess of Coolsville.

Rickie Lee’s voice has a unique and boyish tonality, offering no vibrato, and replete with a 40s-style jazz sensibility, has distinguished her from every other major singer in the modern era. Much imitated but rarely credited, Rickie Lee Jones is an unparalleled artist of great integrity and credibility. Although she is somewhat shy and reclusive in person, Rickie Lee's music has been a major force in for nearly 30 years, a major influence on the music of Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Edie Brickell, Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Michelle Branch and many others.

Rickie Lee Jones continues to record and play live. Her newest album, Sermon On Exposition Boulevard, was released February 6th, 2007 on New West Records.

This album contains no booklet.