Rickie Lee Jones performs her classic album Pirates

at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

for NPR Music's "Turning the Tables Live"

Plus

Selections from the 150 greatest albums by women with performances by Ronnie Spector, Nona Hendryx, Alynda Segarra, TORRES, Lizzo, and Gaby Moreno

On Wednesday July 26, Rickie Lee Jones will perform her classic album Pirates in full at Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival for NPR Music's "Turning the Tables Live". One of the country’s longest-running free outdoor summer festivals, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, with collaboration with NPR Music, will kick off the festival with "Turning The Tables Live", an evening of celebration for women’s accomplishments as recording artists, producing some of the finest albums of our time.

The performance’s opening will feature selections from a new popular music canon, with women at its center, performed by acclaimed musicians spanning generations: Ronnie Spector, Nona Hendryx, Alynda Segarra, TORRES, Lizzo, and Gaby Moreno. Rickie Lee Jones will then take the stage to perform Pirates.

July 2017 will mark the 36th anniversary of Pirates which upon release was awarded 5/5 stars by Rolling Stone. Years later, British magazine The Word listed it one of pop music’s "25 Most Underrated Albums of All Time". The LP features an all-star line up including Donald Fagen, Victor Feldman, and trumpeter Randy Brecker.

Longtime music critic Jon Pareles of New York Times said:

"The few unconventional songs on (her debut album) hardly foreshadowed what Miss Jones would attempt - and pull off - on ''Pirates'' in 1981…''Pirates'' was unabashedly ambitious.

Songs such as ''We Belong Together'' and ''Traces of the Western Slopes'' broke down the neat compartments of verse-chorus-bridge. The songs didn't just juxtapose segments like beads on a necklace; they aimed for a coherent, quasi-symphonic development. Miss Jones had learned how to suspend a song's forward motion without losing its drama. Using riffs that could circle themselves again and again and complex chords that can hang in the air, she found an audio equivalent of cinematic slow-motion and freeze-frame."

NPR MUSIC’S TURNING THE TABLES LIVE Featuring Rickie Lee Jones performing her album Pirates in full plus performances by Ronnie Spector, Nona Hendryx, Alynda Segarra, TORRES, Lizzo, and Gaby Moreno

Wednesday, July 26 at 7:00 pm

Damrosch Park Bandshell

Event take place on Lincoln Center’s campus between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, from West 62nd Street to West 65th Street. 

FREE, No Tickets Required

Visit LCOutOfDoors.org for complete schedule

ABOUT TURNING THE TABLES LIVE

NPR Music and Lincoln Center Out of Doors join forces to kick off this year’s festival with Turning the Tables Live, an evening featuring some of music’s most talented women performing songs from NPR Music’s upcoming list of the 150 greatest albums created by women during the “classic album era” (defined roughly as 1964 to the present). The concert and list also mark the start of an upcoming, multiplatform NPR Music project, and the first of four Lincoln Center collaborations.

While women often get their due as important performers and trendsetters, to this day they are rarely credited for skills and vision in the recording studio. Turning the Tables sets out to examine what stories remain to be told about women realizing their visions through the album form, acting as pioneers of technology and musical virtuosity, and creating key listening experiences that have been treasured by listeners over multiple generations.

Once published, the list—compiled by a panel of contributors from NPR Music and the public radio system, and encompassing 150 albums with women at their center as artists, songwriters, musicians, and/or producers—will form the basis of monthly radio broadcasts and online features across the NPR system.

ABOUT LINCOLN CENTER OUT OF DOORS

The 47th edition of the Out of Doors festival continues through August 13, filling the Lincoln Center campus with a diverse range of music, dance, spoken word, and family events featuring dozens of artists from across the city, country, and world—all completely free and open to the public. Full programming for Lincoln Center Out of Doors available separately—see here for info.

Inaugurated in 1971, Lincoln Center Out of Doors began as a small festival of street theater in collaboration with Everyman Theater (cofounded by actress Geraldine Fitzgerald). Over its 45-year history, Out of Doors has commissioned more than 100 works from composers and choreographers and presented hundreds of major dance companies, renowned world-music artists, and legendary jazz, folk, gospel, blues, and rock musicians. It has highlighted the rich cultural diversity of New York City with its annual La Casita project, which offers poetry and spoken word, along with music and dance performances. Out of Doors has partnered with dozens of community and cultural organizations, including the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center, Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and the Chinese American Arts Council. The festival is produced by Jill Sternheimer.