Despite being active in six different decades, penning an acclaimed memoir, and writing at least one hit song everybody knows — the epochal "Chuck E.'s in Love" — Rickie Lee Jones remains an artist oddly under the radar.

The two-time GRAMMY winner and eight-time nominee is generally framed as a Los Angeles jazz-popper with a boho persona, a product of the upwardly mobile '80s listening market. There's truth there, but it hardly does justice to her individuality and genius.

Nobody sings jazz-pop fusions quite like her — and few can write a ballad as poignant as "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963" or "We Belong Together," or a rave-up as razzing as "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking." Still fewer have had a run like she did in the late 1970s and '80s, from her album Rickie Lee Jones to Flying Cowboys.

Did you know that Jones made an experimental album in the '90s called Ghostyhead, that could go toe-to-toe with anything by Tom Waits — who she happened to date back in the day? (Oh, and it has a trip-hop song about, er, the spirits of aborted embryos possessing home furniture.) Or that she's put inventive spins on everyone from Bowie to Hendrix to Steely Dan?

At the 2024 GRAMMYs, Jones' latest album, 2023's Pieces of Treasure, is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, along with works by Liz Callaway, Laufey, Pentatonix, Bruce Springsteen, and Sondheim Unplugged (The NYC Sessions), Vol. 2, a range of artists.

This marks Jones' first GRAMMY nod since 2001 for her album, It's Like This, in the same category. Like that Y2K-era album, Pieces of Treasure is composed of covers — in this case, the Great American Songbook, from "Nature Boy" to "One for My Baby" and beyond.

It also illuminates the nature of Jones' discography: about once a decade, she returns to a vast repertoire, as if returning to a spring and drinking thirstily, and releases a covers album. She's clearly found inspiration there: her last two albums have solely consisted of outside material.

These shouldn't be shrugged off as lateral moves: every so often, Jones cracks open a window, and lets us see the tunes that are resonating with her in that moment. Maybe she'll be on a Stones jag, a la The Devil You Know. Or, she'll be in the mood for a little America, rubbing elbows with "Mack the Knife," as on Kicks.

"They're often as much a part of my emotional vocabulary as the things I write myself," Jones told Billboard in 2019. "Because I'm not very prolific as far as this business goes, it's a good thing to do."

With the 2024 GRAMMYs just ahead, take a quick spin with us through Jones' covers albums.

Pop Pop (1991)

Jones' first covers album is a crash course in Jonesian curation, as if to say, "I'll have a spooky Hendrix jam about extraterrestrials, with a side of Sinatra and Mancini, please." But paradoxically, "Up From the Skies," from Axis: Bold as Love, feels right at home.

The instrumentation is stripped down to a folky skeleton, allowing Jones to vocally shine on highlights like "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most," "Dat Dere," and "I Won't Grow Up." (And dig Robben Ford, Charlie Shoemake, and the one and only JoeHen in the personnel!)

It's Like This (2000)

On the follow-up to 1997's Ghostyhead, Jones tiptoed away from that album's glorious weirdness for It's Like This, where Hoagy Carmichael and the Gershwin brothers shake hands with Steely Dan ("Show Biz Kids") and the Beatles ("For No One").

The latter two are arguably the highlights, especially the Steely Dan tune: Walter Becker produced her 1989 classic Flying Cowboys, and the two artists are clearly peas in a pod, spiritually speaking.

The Devil You Know (2012)

After 2009's often mystical, droney Balm in Gilead, Jones went rootsy and bluesy for her next covers album, The Devil You Know, which focuses on the classic rock canon.

Some of us are burned out on the overused "Sympathy for the Devil," but Jones' take is a must-hear; she can masterfully deal in menace without sounding menacing.

Elsewhere, Donovan's immortal "Catch the Wind" gets a spin, as well as, wonderfully, "Comfort You," from Van Morrison's dark-horse masterpiece Veedon Fleece.

Kicks (2019)

For the eclectic Kicks, Jones fixed her eye on '70s rock — not quite top-tier, but maybe one or two below that. Think Bad Company ("Bad Company") or America ("Lonely People").\
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"The thing about America is that they weren't exactly on the A-list. They sounded a lot like Neil Young and, at the time, it seemed kind of like a copycat pop song," she told Billboard in the same interview.

"But I think one of the things that I keep trying to say," she continued, "is that you have to get over how you perceive a thing and look for the treasure in the music."

Pieces of Treasure (2023)

If the Great American Songbook is so tired or over-trod, then why do the masters keep returning to it? The answer is right there in the title: these are still Pieces of Treasure.

"But as a singer, these songs are home for me. I have strong opinions about them and I know how to sing them. I'm unaffected, straight from the heart," she told Tidal. "And I still have enough ability, even at my age, to make them swing, which someday will become hard for me."

Her sentiment brings to mind the title of one of her best albums, Pirates. Her quest for these riches remains vigilant, and the Recording Academy membership agreed: she found treasure indeed.

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