RLJ skyrocketed to fame overnight after her performance of "Chuck E's in Love" on Saturday Night Live. Chuck E went on to top the US Billboard Hot 100 at #4 and RLJ was dubbed the "Duchess of Coolsville" by Time magazine
Other iconic hits include Young Blood (US #40), and The Horses (which featured in Jerry Maguire). RLJ has been featured twice on the cover of Rolling Stone and been profiled in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Mojo Magazine among others, and was listed at number 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll
This is no holds barred account of the life of one of rock's hardest working women in her own words; from her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers, her father's abandonment and her years as a teenage runaway, her beginnings at the Troubador club and the 70s LA jazz pop scene, her tumultuous (and private) relationship with Tom Waits, her overnight rise to stardom after performing Chuck E on Saturday Night Live, her battle with drugs, and longevity as a woman in rock
Beautiful, untold account of her relationship with Tom Waits: "Tom Waits and I were like Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart in Across the Pacific. We found ourselves alone on a steamer headed to some port or another; it didn't matter to us. He was a worn and troubled traveler from another life, and I was an innocent and mysterious impulse, a woman out of place, holding my ground, beat for beat. I was only his..."
Details with candor the misogynist "boys club" world of rock and her life as a strong woman and mother in it. Brilliant anecdotes about the industry including her collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Dr John, Lyle Lovett, and Steely Dan to name but a few
She is one of few women performers of her generation-including Bonnie Rait and Emmylou Harris-who still works, tours, and releases new material. She inspired and paved the way for artists such as Sheryl Crow, Susanne Vega, Tori Amos, and Jewel to follow
Will appeal to fans of music memoirs like Patti Smith's Just Kids, Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Keith Richard's Life, Carly Simon's Boys in the Trees, Rodney Crowell's Chinaberry Sidewalks, and Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run
Supercard