“Book of the Year.”—MOJO Magazine
“Outstanding Book of the Year.”—The Herald (Glasgow)
A Best Book of the Year at NPR, Pitchfork, the Telegraph, and Uncut

This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song.

Last Chance Texaco is the first ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones in her own words.  It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music.

With candor and lyricism, the “Duchess of Coolsville” (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll.  Rickie Lee’s stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs — “Weasel and the White Boys Cool,” “Danny’s All-Star Joint,” and “Easy Money” — but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold and tales of her fabled ancestors.

In this electrifying and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired American pop culture for decades.

Praise for Last Chance Texaco:

“Winding and leisurely, as rich and colorful as Jones’s best lyrics. It’s a classically American picaresque tale… Jones paints a striking, distinctive self-portrait.”—New York Times

“Vividly cinematic… Sexy and moving and sad.” —Bookforum

“A jaw-dropping youth, and an addictive, funny, eccentric and perceptive memoir.”—Nick Hornby

“In this raw and roving life story, Jones depicts a child who recognized her humanity and worth even when others wouldn’t, and a woman whose confidence helped her rise above heroin addiction, music-industry sexism and the traumas of her youth . . . In a book about the past, Jones has no problem moving on. It’s a neat trick.”—Jake Cline, Washington Post

“Vividly cinematic… Sexy and moving and sad.”—Bookforum

“She reads as a modern Huck Finn… A testament to the joys and the chaos of a life of traveling.”— New Yorker

“It’s the absolute best book about being an artist in the rock world that I’ve ever read.”—Bob Lefsetz, The Lefsetz Letter

“[Rickie Lee Jones] opened every door, and she never flinched… She’s a storyteller.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Candid, cosmic, so cool… An impassioned and cinematic trip through Jones’s eventful life. I shouldn’t be surprised that Jones manages to carry her originality, intimacy, and volcanic expressiveness into book form.”—Boston Globe

“Terrific… The prose is rich and rhythmic, filled with lines that are pithy (‘Rickie Lee is a Frank Capra movie that had been overtaken by Stanley Kubrick’) and poetic (‘childhood traumas leave their dirty footprints on the fresh white snow of our happy-ever-afters’)… Jones is as fearless in prose as she is on stage. ”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“So remarkably beautifully written, showing [Rickie Lee’s] signature as a songwriter, too.”—Scott Simon, NPR

“One of the most compelling memoirs I’ve ever read… What really sucks you in, and lifts you up, is the dazzling magic of her prose.”—Please Kill Me

“Well-crafted and intensely candid.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

“This tender, fierce, intimate memoir is testament that Jones has lived a life as brave… and rich as her music — with love, heartbreak, addiction, and magic, sprinkled throughout.”—O, the Oprah Magazine