Blue Raincoat Songs, the music publishing team set up by Blue Raincoat Music founders Jeremy Lascelles and Robin Millar, has signed a long term partnership with American singer and songwriter Rickie Lee Jones.
The deal gives them a substantial stake in Jones’ catalogues Structurally Sound Publishing, Easy Money Music and Duck Kill Duck Publishing. The catalogues contain songs such as Chuck E’s In Love, On Saturday Afternoons in 1963, Weasel And The White Boys Cool and Easy Money.
“The moment in 1979 when I saw that iconic photograph of Rickie Lee Jones in a beret, I thought this must be the coolest girl on the planet," said Lascelles. "I immediately fell in love with her music as well. She has remained stylish, sassy and wonderfully uncompromising in everything she has done since, a real artist’s artist.
"This collection of songs is one of the finest of its genre, a treasure chest of gems. It is an extraordinary privilege to be able to look after and nurture it and to work hand in hand with Rickie in finding new opportunities to preserve and enhance her catalogue’s value. This is part of our long-term mission to take truly great writers and artists and bring their work back into the spotlight.”
Jones (pictured) added: "The greatest gift a publisher can give a writer is to keep their music circulated generation after generation. This can only be accomplished if the publisher truly loves the catalogue. Those sonic angels do not die just because someone plays it while you look at shoes. Trust, you know, that's what it's all about.
"I look forward to the beginning of a beautiful partnership, and hearing my music all over the place. Long after I have quit orbiting planet earth, I hope to hear, from far off in the galaxy, the desperate harmonics of a passing truck as some young singer unties The Last Chance Texaco and takes it out for a ride.”
Jones is Blue Raincoat Music’s second signing for its publishing arm, the first being the legendary Mike ‘Simply The Best’ Chapman. More announcements are due very shortly.
