Pirates (album)
Encyclopedia
Pirates is the second album by Chicago
-born singer, songwriter, and musician Rickie Lee Jones
, released in July 1981, two years after her eponymous debut Rickie Lee Jones
. The album is partially an account of her break-up with fellow musician Tom Waits
after the success of her debut album. The cover is a 1976-copyrighted photo by Brassaï
.
for Best New Artist.
Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood with five songs, which were recorded and arranged in a two-month spurt in early 1980 before Jones was given an extended break for further writing. Album sessions reconvened in November 1980 and concluded in April 1981, three months before the album release.
All songs were copyrighted on June 9, 1980, as well as “Hey Bub,” which was omitted from the album release, except for “Living It Up” and “Traces of the Western Slopes,” copyrighted in July, 1981, at the time of the album release.
after her split from Tom Waits, and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey
, whom she had met in Venice, California in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village
. Bernardi, who had been referenced in the lyrics to "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from her debut, was to become a frequent collaborator with Jones, and they composed the epic eight-minute suite "Traces of the Western Slopes" together.
Jones started writing the first songs from the album - "Hey Bub" (unreleased until 1983), "We Belong Together," and "Pirates" - in the autumn of 1979.
Elsewhere, the music on Pirates is often cinematic, with influences ranging from Leonard Bernstein
to Bruce Springsteen
and Laura Nyro
. The album is more musically ambitious than its predecessor, and explores elements of jazz
, R&B, bebop
, pop, and Broadway
, with multiple changes in tempo and mood within most songs.
In recent years, Pirates reputation has grown considerably, with British-based music magazine Word magazine proclaiming it as one of pop music's 25 Most Underrated Albums of All Time in 2005.
Rolling Stone (US), Sep.3, 1981 - "It's Rickie Lee Jones' voice that carries Pirates to the stars and makes her whole crazy vision not only comprehensible but compulsive, compelling and as welcome as Christmas in July."
Time (US), Jan.4, 1982 - Best of 1981 - "Tales of lovers, losers and wanderers, delivered with a bopster's inflection and the sidling sensuality of a carhop."
"We Belong Together"
Here, Jones appears to lament the end of her relationship with Waits, populating her narrative with intriguing bohemian characters such as Johnny the King. The song also references movie icons Marlon Brando
and Natalie Wood
. Jones plays an elegant piano melody with the arrangement building around her.
"Living It Up"
One of the last songs recorded for Pirates, "Living It Up" details the lives of a succession of bohemian street characters, with Jones introducing Louie, Eddie, and the down-and-out teenage domestic violence victim Zero. Jones' jaunty piano melody is embellished by sweeps of orchestration, lavish vocal harmonies, and tempo changes.
"Skeletons"
Along with "The Returns," the first song to be recorded for the album on January 30, 1980. The song, delivered solo on piano with a string arrangement, is based on the true story of a man who, in a case of mistaken identity, was killed by police in Los Angeles
while taking his wife to hospital to give birth.
"Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish)
Co-written with David Kalish, this is a bebop
tribute to 1950s R&B icons, with a finger-snapping guitar riff and an in-studio male vocal chorus. It is one of the album's most upbeat songs and one of the few not to feature significant tempo/rhythm changes. The rhythm of the song is driven by a funk style bass line played by Chuck Rainey and percussion boxes and thighs played by Steve Gadd.
"Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)"
Another ode to Waits, this references "rainbow sleeves" in its lyrics; Waits' song "Rainbow Sleeves" was later to be recorded by Jones on her EP album Girl at Her Volcano. The song begins jauntily with a jazz horn melody before the horns fade out, making a return for the coda.
"A Lucky Guy"
Along with "The Returns," perhaps the album's simplest song musically, here Jones appears jealous of Waits' apparent ease to get on with life at the end of the relationship ("he's a lucky guy/he doesn't worry about me when I'm gone.")
"Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones)
Co-written with then-boyfriend Sal Bernardi, this is an eight-minute epic again detailing bohemian nightlife and referencing Edgar Allan Poe
.
"The Returns"
A soft, simple ending delivered solo on piano with string arrangement, much like the closer to the previous album, "After Hours." It is also the album's shortest composition.
Singles - Billboard
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
-born singer, songwriter, and musician Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a three-decade career, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards.-Childhood:...
, released in July 1981, two years after her eponymous debut Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones (album)
Rickie Lee Jones is the eponymous debut album of singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones. After arriving in California in the mid-70s, Jones started taking songwriting more seriously, and by 1977 had met singer-songwriters Chuck E...
. The album is partially an account of her break-up with fellow musician Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
after the success of her debut album. The cover is a 1976-copyrighted photo by Brassaï
Brassaï
Brassaï was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars...
.
Recording
Initial recording for Pirates began in January 1980, with the live recordings for "Skeletons" and "The Returns" from January 30 from these sessions kept on the final album. In the same month, Jones picked up a Grammy AwardGrammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best New Artist.
Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood with five songs, which were recorded and arranged in a two-month spurt in early 1980 before Jones was given an extended break for further writing. Album sessions reconvened in November 1980 and concluded in April 1981, three months before the album release.
All songs were copyrighted on June 9, 1980, as well as “Hey Bub,” which was omitted from the album release, except for “Living It Up” and “Traces of the Western Slopes,” copyrighted in July, 1981, at the time of the album release.
Overview
Jones relocated to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
after her split from Tom Waits, and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, whom she had met in Venice, California in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Bernardi, who had been referenced in the lyrics to "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from her debut, was to become a frequent collaborator with Jones, and they composed the epic eight-minute suite "Traces of the Western Slopes" together.
Jones started writing the first songs from the album - "Hey Bub" (unreleased until 1983), "We Belong Together," and "Pirates" - in the autumn of 1979.
Elsewhere, the music on Pirates is often cinematic, with influences ranging from Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
to Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...
. The album is more musically ambitious than its predecessor, and explores elements of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, R&B, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, pop, and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, with multiple changes in tempo and mood within most songs.
Success
Pirates was well-received by critics, achieving a five-star rating in Rolling Stone magazine, which featured Jones on the cover of the August 6, 1981 issue for a second time. The album also became a Top 5 US chart success, and remained on the UK album charts for three months without the aid of a major hit single.In recent years, Pirates reputation has grown considerably, with British-based music magazine Word magazine proclaiming it as one of pop music's 25 Most Underrated Albums of All Time in 2005.
Reviews
The Age (Australia), Aug.6, 1981 - "On Pirates, Rickie Lee Jones executes a brilliant artistic leap which not only outshines her Grammy-winning debut album but establishes her as one of the most important singer/songwriters of the decade."Rolling Stone (US), Sep.3, 1981 - "It's Rickie Lee Jones' voice that carries Pirates to the stars and makes her whole crazy vision not only comprehensible but compulsive, compelling and as welcome as Christmas in July."
Time (US), Jan.4, 1982 - Best of 1981 - "Tales of lovers, losers and wanderers, delivered with a bopster's inflection and the sidling sensuality of a carhop."
Songs
All songs written and composed by Rickie Lee Jones, excepted when noted:"We Belong Together"
Here, Jones appears to lament the end of her relationship with Waits, populating her narrative with intriguing bohemian characters such as Johnny the King. The song also references movie icons Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
and Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
. Jones plays an elegant piano melody with the arrangement building around her.
"Living It Up"
One of the last songs recorded for Pirates, "Living It Up" details the lives of a succession of bohemian street characters, with Jones introducing Louie, Eddie, and the down-and-out teenage domestic violence victim Zero. Jones' jaunty piano melody is embellished by sweeps of orchestration, lavish vocal harmonies, and tempo changes.
"Skeletons"
Along with "The Returns," the first song to be recorded for the album on January 30, 1980. The song, delivered solo on piano with a string arrangement, is based on the true story of a man who, in a case of mistaken identity, was killed by police in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
while taking his wife to hospital to give birth.
"Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish)
Co-written with David Kalish, this is a bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
tribute to 1950s R&B icons, with a finger-snapping guitar riff and an in-studio male vocal chorus. It is one of the album's most upbeat songs and one of the few not to feature significant tempo/rhythm changes. The rhythm of the song is driven by a funk style bass line played by Chuck Rainey and percussion boxes and thighs played by Steve Gadd.
"Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)"
Another ode to Waits, this references "rainbow sleeves" in its lyrics; Waits' song "Rainbow Sleeves" was later to be recorded by Jones on her EP album Girl at Her Volcano. The song begins jauntily with a jazz horn melody before the horns fade out, making a return for the coda.
"A Lucky Guy"
Along with "The Returns," perhaps the album's simplest song musically, here Jones appears jealous of Waits' apparent ease to get on with life at the end of the relationship ("he's a lucky guy/he doesn't worry about me when I'm gone.")
"Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones)
Co-written with then-boyfriend Sal Bernardi, this is an eight-minute epic again detailing bohemian nightlife and referencing Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
.
"The Returns"
A soft, simple ending delivered solo on piano with string arrangement, much like the closer to the previous album, "After Hours." It is also the album's shortest composition.
Track listing
- "We Belong Together"
- "Living It Up"
- "Skeletons"
- "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (Jones, David Kalish)
- "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)"
- "A Lucky Guy"
- "Traces of the Western Slopes" (Sal Bernardi, Jones)
- "The Returns"
Personnel
Rickie Lee Jones - vocals, guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, percussion, vocals & horn arrangements- Donald FagenDonald FagenDonald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....
- synthesizer - Victor FeldmanVictor FeldmanVictor Stanley Feldman was a British jazz musician, best known as a pianist.-Early history:...
- drums, percussion, keyboards - Rob MounseyRob MounseyRob Mounsey is an award-winning composer, music producer, and musician. He was born in Berea, Ohio and grew up in Seattle, Washington and several Ohio towns. At the age of 17, he was awarded a BMI Student Composer's Award in New York. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1971 to 1975...
- synthesizer - David SanbornDavid SanbornDavid Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
- alto saxophone - Tom ScottTom Scott (musician)Tom Scott is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, conductor and bandleader of the west coast jazz/jazz fusion ensemble The L.A. Express.-Biography:Scott was born in Los Angeles, California...
- baritone & tenor saxophone - Ralph Burns - orchestral arrangements
- Chuck RaineyChuck RaineyChuck Rainey, is an American bass guitar session musician, known for playing with many well-known American musicians and acts, including Donald Byrd, Steely Dan, Quincy Jones, and Aretha Franklin.-Biography:Rainey's youthful pursuits included violin, piano and trumpet...
- bass - Sal Bernardi - harmonica, vocals
- Michael BoddickerMichael BoddickerMichael J. Boddicker , is an American film composer and session musician, specializing in electronic music. Three times N.A.R.A.S. Most Valuable Player "Synthesizer" and MVP Emeritus, he was awarded a Grammy as a songwriter for Imagination from Flashdance in 1984...
- synthesizer - Randy BreckerRandy BreckerRandal "Randy" Brecker is an American trumpeter and flugelhornist. He is a highly sought after performer in the genres of jazz, rock, and R&B, and has performed or recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Billy Cobham, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Sandip Burman, Charles Mingus, Blood, Sweat & Tears,...
- trumpet, flugelhorn - Lenny CastroLenny CastroLenny Castro is an American freelancing percussionist in the studio recording industry in the Los Angeles area.-Early life:Castro is a percussionist of Puerto Rican descent and was born and raised in New York City. His father, Hector Castro, played the keyboard in a Latin style and gave his son...
- percussion - Nick DeCaro - orchestral arrangements
- Buzz FeitenBuzz FeitenHoward "Buzz" Feiten is a North American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and session musician.He is best known as a lead and rhythm electric guitarist, and for having patented a unique, scientifically designed tuning system which re-configures its stringboard / neck for more accurate tonality...
- guitar - Russell FerranteRussell FerranteRussell Keith Ferrante is a jazz pianist from San Jose, California who is a founding member of the group Yellowjackets. During his early career, Ferrante performed with American blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon and guitarist Robben Ford. He also toured with Joni Mitchell. The group Yellowjackets...
- keyboards - Steve GaddSteve GaddSteve Gadd is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.-Biography:...
- drums - Jerry HeyJerry HeyJerry Hey is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, horn arranger, string arranger, orchestrator and session musician who has played on hundreds of commercial recordings, including Thriller and the distinctive flugelhorn solo on Dan Fogelberg's hit Longer....
- trumpet, flugelhorn, horn - David Kalish - guitar
- Randy Kerber - keyboards
- Neil Larsen - keyboards
- Arno Lucas - background vocals
- Steve LukatherSteve LukatherSteve "Luke" Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger, and record producer best known for his work with the rock band Toto. Lukather has played with many artists, released several solo albums, and worked as a composer, arranger, and session guitarist on more than 1,500 albums...
- guitar - Clarence McDonald - keyboards
- Dean ParksDean ParksDean Parks is an American session guitarist and record producer from Ft. Worth, TX.-Albums:Dean was member of The North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher in 1970. Dean is best-known through his many contributions to albums by Steely Dan...
- guitar - Art Rodriguez - drums
- Leslie Smith - background vocals
- Joe Turano - background vocals
Charts
Album| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | US | 5 |
| 1981 | UK | 37 |
Singles - Billboard
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" | Mainstream Rock | 40 |
| 1981 | "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" | Mainstream Rock | 31 |
| 1981 | "A Lucky Guy" | Pop Singles | 64 |
External links
- http://rickieleejones.com
- http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/rickie_lee_jones/pirates/