Rickie Lee Jones

Sugar and Spice 1992

(Foreground L-R) Rickie Lee Jones and co-producer Bruce Brody, (standing L-R) engineer Larry Alexander and assistant engineer Tom Sweeney, Record One Recording Studios, LA 2000

Do you have an affinity for the Beat Generation?

Yeah, but I didn’t know anything about Beatniks. I was 14. My affinity must come naturally, not from reading about them. I just naturally lived a kind of life that they were famous for. I think my being related to them came through Tom Waits—me being connected to Tom, and Tom being connected to that.

Well, when I began, we were living together, and I talked about him a lot. I will forever be related to him.

Lowell George recorded your song “Easy Money” before you made your first record. What effect did that have?