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Rickie Lee Jones cuts right to the chase on the first page of the introduction to “Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour,” her well-crafted and intensely candid new memoir.
Its second paragraph reads: “
When I was twenty-three years old I drove around L.A. with Tom Waits. We’d cruise along Highway 1 in his new 1963 Thunderbird. With my blonde hair flying out the window and both of us sweating in the summer sun, the alcohol seeped from our pores and the sex smell still soaked our clothes and our hair. We liked our smell. We did not bathe as often as we might have. We were in love and I for one was not interested in washing any of that off. By the end of summer we were exchanging song ideas. We were also exchanging something deeper. Each other.”