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Joe Jackson On World Cafe

Joe Jackson.
Courtesy of the artist
Joe Jackson.

Joe Jackson is well known as the writer of the 1979 hit "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" and for his biggest single, "Steppin' Out." Jackson — who grew up in Portsmouth, England and attended the Royal Academy of Music — has also had five Grammy nominations over his illustrious four-decade career. His music has ranged from light pop-rock to ambitious, classically structured pieces. He is also the author of A Cure for Gravity, a memoir first published in 1999.

Jackson's latest album, The Duke, is an album of covers released this past June and features wild re-imaginings ofDuke Ellington's greatest hits. Jackson has some help from singers Iggy Pop("It Don't Mean a Thing") and Sharon Jones ("I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues").

On today's episode of World Cafe, Jackson explains to host David Dye some of the rules he set for himself — for example, no horns appear on the album — and how those rules helped unlock his creative process. Jackson is touring in support of The Duke with a newer, larger band called, inevitably, the Bigger Band.

Copyright 2012 XPN