Grace Jones, Bumper Puller-Upper and Warm Leatherette Enthusiast, is currently working on a memoir.
According to a new story from the Associated Press, the larger-than-life singer/actress/model/muse plans to put the book out sometime next fall with Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
From AP:
In a statement released by Gallery, Jones noted that her song “Art Groupie” began with the line, “I’ll never write my memoirs.” What made her give in? If she didn’t do it, someone else would.
Among the stories the 65-year-old Jones plans to share: rooming with Jerry Hall and hanging out with Jessica Lange, collaborating with Andy Warhol, and acting with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This is major news: Grace Jones remains one of the most legendary pop culture icons, synonymous with ’70’s and ’80’s-era disco and New York City discotheques. She forged relationships with the likes of just about every prominent artist at the time — from Andy Warhol to Jean-Paul Goude — to craft her iconic looks, and her discography is a thrilling run from early disco to avant-garde future sound. The stories will all undoubtedly be amazing — especially since she happens to be hilarious.
Meanwhile, Grace is continuing to put in work in the studio for her follow-up to 2008’s Hurricane with producer Ivor Guest, who’s been updating his Tumblr almost daily with updates about the recording process.
One of his last updates about the album’s progress, posted a week ago, is a pretty exciting tease of what’s to come:
I’ve been moving ahead in the studio. One of the reasons this record is taking time is I’m being pretty militant with GJ about the quality of the writing. We have written this album from scratch during the process. Last week I was working with Barry Reynolds. He is a songwriter in the old school (he wrote Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, and songs for GJ such as Well Well Well, Done it Again and the lyrics to Libertango).
The reason I’m militant about this is that GJ’s material needs to be outstanding, and it’s just not that easy to knock out great songs at breakneck speed. Making cool sounding music is quite easy when you know what you’re doing, but writing great songs is even hard for great songwriters. It’s a numbers game up to a point. You have to do a lot.
So that’s why it’s taking time. But I’m pleased to report that we are getting there. I think we are making a very imaginative album that will surprise, and survive thru time. GJ is an artist of the future, in that people will be listening to her records into the future. We can’t just put out any old shite.
According to recent updates, Dave Okumu is also currently involved in the Jones recording sessions (who produced Jessie Ware‘s incredible debut, Devotion), as well as Dev Hynes (AKA Blood Orange), the genius behind Sky Ferreira‘s “Everything Is Embarrassing” and Solange‘s True EP.
Future sound, indeed.
