ABSTRACT
On April 6, 1979, two weeks after the release of her self-titled debut album on Warner Bros. Records, Rickie Lee Jones was booked as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, the NBC broadcast network's popular late-night satire. The Story of a Runaway Success contained biographical and career connotations that were presented in a six-page interview with Jones by one of the era's pre-eminent music journalists, Timothy White. For a concise discussion of Rickie Lee Jones and the generation of women artists coming of age in the late 1970s within the context of singer-songwriter and punk movements, see Gardner. Rickie Lee Jones was more hip than hippie, more Sunset Strip scenester and Santa Monica Boulevard lass than lady of the canyon and its confessional clique. Jones adapted the proverbial 'walk on the wild side' into her own sphere, 'the jazz side of life', the other side of the tracks; it's a real insecure constant improvisation.
