Rickie Lee Jones has been making albums since 1979, but there’s nothing dated about her music. She’s been recognized from her earliest days as an original, with a winsome, vulnerable vocal style and deep talent for encapsulating lyrical tableaux.

Her poetic sensibility has earned her a “beatnik” label, and that’s fitting — like the original hipsters, she mixes pop art, jazz and spoken word into a hypnotic, hyperaware brew. Female artists who came after have followed a path she forged, from Edie Brickell and Natalie Merchant to Jenny Lewis and ZZ Ward.

Beginning with that 1979 debut, “Rickie Lee Jones,” and the hit single, “Chuck E.’s in Love,” Jones explored fresh territory with each succeeding album. “Pirates,” her second album, drew shadowed, tuneful and empathetic portraits of outsiders on the edge. Her 1989 album “Flying Cowboys” was produced by Steely Dan’s Walter Becker. In 1990, she won a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance along with Dr. John for their recording of “Makin’ Whoopee.”

Jones’ 2007 album, “The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard,” is spare, revelatory art-rock, inspired by her consideration of Christianity. In 2012, she released an album of rock ’n’ roll covers, “The Devil You Know,” with songs by Neil Young, the Band and Van Morrison, among others.

With her latest album, “The Other Side of Desire,” Jones has again proclaimed her talent. She left Los Angeles for New Orleans a couple of years back, looking for a greater sense of community and inspiration, and found both.

She’s touring Hawaii through Wednesday, playing six shows on four islands. For her Hawaii Theatre concert on Sunday, she will sing, play grand piano and guitar, accompanied by Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes. “She is finishing her autobiography, to be published next spring, and as such is perfect for my ongoing Storytellers series, of veteran musicians with stories to tell, and tell them well,” Buffalo Music promoter Doug Allsopp says.

Jones, who prefers to answer questions by email, exchanged these thoughts with the Star-Advertiser last month.

Star-Advertiser: Your music has always embraced a range of feeling — even exuberant songs have an echo of … transience, let’s say, where perhaps the nature of your vocals is a reminder that, you know, nothing lasts. And when you perform dark or chilling songs, there’s joy and courage there, as you brave the experience. So, how do you do that? Do you contemplate certain emotions before you go into a performance? Why do you sing the way you do, and how did you get there?

Rickie Lee Jones: I do not contemplate emotions. It is a very complex idea, your question. As I contemplate the reply too many things come up. Suffice to say that we convey emotion with our voice. Singers sing the history of life, either their life or the collective life, and probably singers are endowed with some special kind of conveyance, and they cause us to feel more than some other guy when he sings the same thing. A singer is a voice that evokes, and provokes, and that is probably a thing some of us are born with.

Why I sing the way I do is because I cannot sing any other way!

Why I sing … well. That’s another question.

S-A: I think your most recent album, “The Other Side of Desire,” is brilliant, and appreciate the way it showcases your vivid storytelling abilities. The first song alone, “Jimmy Choos,” with lines like “up there on your hot tin roof, throwing pop bottles at them with your gold cap tooth,” seems to contain a lifetime and a world. What kinds of stories were you trying to tell with “The Other Side of Desire”?

RLJ: Well thank you very much — for noticing. I sometimes think the lyrics are lost on people today, that I miss the simple punchline or reason for telling the story. Sometimes there is no big reason, just a series of images I find evocative and that’s it. The astute observation then takes me by surprise.

Yes, all the world of these characters, I do contemplate them, make their teeth, their trucks, their reasons. The one up on the roof throwing bottles at the cops, risking her life just because … she needs to come down from there and get her teeth fixed!

I was telling the momentary stories. Here is a picture of some people driving west. Here is a picture of a person I saw in drag late last night. Here is a picture of my heart, wearing high heels, looking for a way out.

Here is the river. See how she overflows, looking for the people who love her. See how she kills them just by reaching for them. Here is the train, her lover, always coming, always going. These are the things I felt, and thought and said as I wrote the record.

I think the salvation is in the writing. The feelings and images that come up as if ghosts are touching you, or passing by. The feeling of writing is so mystical and fulfilling, and those characters as I am writing them, they really do seem alive. …

Now, maybe I’m weak with titles. My titles don’t invite people in. I think, “Oh that’s funny, call it that!” Because how can I possibly title the creation of characters and the subtle moments of their lives? The title of the record is good but … maybe if it’s a book. Maybe people don’t want to hear about “The Other Side of Desire, the Musical”! I suspect my reticence to title things makes me less than accurate at it.

S-A: What do you have planned for your concert in Honolulu?

RLJ: I am going to, hopefully, read from some things I am writing, as I have been working on an autobiography. There are many stories. On the other hand I don’t like to talk when I sing; it’s hard on the voice. So we’ll see.

I am coming with a fantastic vibraphonist and percussionist, Mike Dillon.

S-A: You lived in New Orleans when making “Pirates,” but have said the city didn’t resonate with you at the time. You’ve now returned. Can you tell us about your relationship with the city?

RLJ: I had an apartment here for a few years, renting it during the first writing of “Pirates” — but yes, I did not really care much about the city. It is a rough place, I was a rough chick. I ate doughnuts and slept all day.

Now though, I am reaching out, and it reaches back. This city seems to do what you do, back at ya. I love the music and the people, the tempo of life in the dark and in the light. It is revitalizing me, that’s true I think. Much better for me here than L.A.

S-A: You’ve been open about low points in your past, including loneliness in your early career, and a period when drugs got the better of you. The George W. Bush era provoked you into angry protest music. And in recent interviews, you’ve talked about the insecurity of feeling as if you’d disappeared from the public’s consciousness, no matter how much you poured into your music. What’s your relationship to that history today?

RLJ: Well, I’m feeling better all around, and those were moments in my life. Yes I am always boldly frank about what’s going on. Those periods are not the prominent view from where I stand today. … I have some idea about the next moment, and tomorrow, but that’s abstract as far as our discussion goes. So the history, for me, the story of my life up to now is neither good nor bad, just the story.

The years or months lost to drugs, the decades as a mother, the scores as an artist — and don’t forget I’m a pretty good dancer — it’s all just the story of a woman who lived at the end of the 20th century. Whether I am at peace with my story or not, that’s just gonna have to be what I am, inside, not for discussion in an interview. FYI, I feel a lot more peaceful about my performance as a human being than I ever did before.

S-A: What encourages you? What motivates you, so far as the way that pertains to your music and your concert tour?

RLJ: I think human beings are very inspirational, and sometimes events. Something does need to spark a reaction. I have the tools, the ability to write, but what makes it exciting, living, is that it is a reaction to something. The same is true of a concert. It’s the engagement of all those spirits who gather for the sole purpose of hearing music. That is so thrilling, and such a true testament to the true nature of humanity. What a phenomenon.

S-A: In the liner notes to your new album, you say filmmaker Gail Harvey, who created a documentary also called “The Other Side of Desire,” gave you “a new balance.” You’ve created a label with this title as well, and credit your supporters for “quite literally a new lease on life.” Could you elaborate?

RLJ: I think the main thing is that human beings have become involved in the process of my work. I suppose they always were, but now they are here during the discussion about the new work, like the prince in “Amadeus”; they are my patrons, and I know it, and I include them in my life.

Being halfway between the old school and some other school, I grew up believing that musicians did not cater to the press or the audience. If they wanted some, fine, but we didn’t acknowledge them or their impact. This was especially true of the earlier generation, Dylan, (Neil) Young, (Joni) Mitchell, etc. Now you have kids that know their fans, engage with them; I mean, they truly know it’s about commerce, and they are OK with that. It’s a weird and different way, and while I am not going there, exactly, I am clear at least that I am in business, and that I am an artist, and that the audience is keeping me in the business of my art.

They are all right with me!