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Rickie Lee Jones says she needs to sing like she needs to breathe.

She learned her phrasing from her father, that slower-than-Sunday-morning delivery she made famous 30 years ago. Now, at age 54, she starts a 14-city tour that will take her overseas. And, she'll start Saturday night at the Carolina Theatre, her only date in the South, one of eight nationwide.

In an e-mail interview from Hawaii, Jones writes about singing, performing and her upcoming release, "Balm in Gilead.''

You’re starting your 14-date tour in North Carolina, the home state of Nina Simone, one of your dad’s favorites. When was the last time you were here and what do you remember about that?

First, thank you, and let me tell you I am in Hawaii resting, so I am not on a computer I know, and will try to send this without too many spelling errors.

I was there a couple years ago, a very sweet little place. It was a very homey kind of place, and the vibe was very easy. Less formal, but not less artful, a kind of ‘if hippies had not died and evolved in North Carolina’ place.

You’ll play at The Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, NC. It’s a beautiful vaudeville theatre, built in 1927, with a huge chandelier hanging over the seats. Knowing your background – your dad, the songwriter; your Aunt Bea, the singer; your grandfather was a one-legged vaudeville dancer named Peg Leg Jones – the Carolina seems like an appropriate place to open your tour. Your thoughts.

Well the spirit world is writing all this anyway, we are just their characters. We must show our amazement, and yet how can we be surprised?

Your latest, “Balm In Gilead’’ is quite the listening treat. Describe how you see this recording of 10 story songs?

I think it is the kind of writing more associated with me, more folks like this kind of thing. I have a feeling right now that a very honest and loving venture into songs is what is needed. So there it is. Easy songs. I cannot explain things, I really just sing.

You use the word “balm’’ in the title. That’s a strong word particularly bonded with the idea of “Gilead.’’ Please, talk about that.

The music is a balm; we are eased and soothed in singing and listening. Is there no balm in Gilead to heal my people? Yes, there is.

On “Balm in Gilead,’’ you’ve recorded one of your dad’s old songs, “Moon is Made of Gold.’’ Last year, you talked about your father in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. You said, “We sang a lot together, and I’m sure I learned is timing. The way I sit behind the berat, the slow way I speak. It all comes from my dad.’’ Tell me about that. What kind of influence was your dad on you, both musically and, well, you being you.

The way I sit behind the berat? Hmm. Dad sang I guess as instinctively as I do, it was just in him to sing, perhaps in the end this is what he gave me. His acknowledgement of that gift, his joy that I should sing so young, that was a gift greater than technique. His time.

It’s funny. Music writers always try to invent new ways to describe your music. You’re R&B, jazz and the rock girl you’ll find on You Tube singing, “Wild Girl.’’ Well, how do you see yourself as a musician?

I see my self as a musician. That has a technician sound to it, I work this idea or I work this instrument. I do that, but because I love to be immersed in music, it comes naturally to me, and I am glad to see me anywhere, listed as anything. I have done so many kinds of things or defied the idea of kinds of music for so long; in this genre laden work place I am glad people discern enough to put it all over. It matters to be defiant, and yes I am, but rather, musically, I am just doing what comes naturally.

Your last two discs – “Balm In Gilead’’ and “Sermon On Exposition Boulevard’’ – take a real spiritual bent. In the past, you’ve said you’re not Christian, but you think about God, the other world and how to listen and – as you describe – “how to unlock the mysteries and how to soothe people. That’s what it’s all about.’’ If you could, please talk about your belief in God and how it ties into your music.

I don’t think my beliefs or images of God are relevant unless that is what we are talking about. My spiritual life is always moving. I speak with any and all Jesus, Vishnu, and a rose by any other name.

How do you write your songs? Talk about the process, the inspiration, the quest of dancing with your muse. Is it the same as it was, say, 30 decades ago or has it changed?

Ultimately the song comes from a wound, a fissure, and what leaks out can be made into a poem, a melody. You can write about your shoe, but the stuff that makes it living is your own blood. It goes on and has a life after you, if it can, and that is because that invisible… what’s that bible word..?...like invisible fibers, they are electric because your living soul expressed itself and made … a place.... like a town....called a song. It exists. Almost like a universe. With its own past and implied future it’s really something.

Back in ’89, when “Flying Cowboys’’ was released and a year after Charlotte Rose was born, you told a music writer this: “It’s gonna sound like a cliché, but I feel a lot more connected to the world since Charlotte.’’ At 54, do you still feel that way or is it more so?

There is no doubt that Charlottes birth brought me into this world more than I had been. People who have children, they know another kind of wear and devotion and humility; theses are things of this world, hard to learn on your own. Children teach you.

And after 30 years playing music, what have you learned about yourself? You know, that something keeps you going?

All that I have at the end of the day is this, this thing I do, that is how I relate and that is how the world relates to me. I would have liked to have been a wife, had a home, but that was not to be. This gift is a great and wonderful responsibility, but really, it’s a thing I do for fun, for grave expression, all that; and it's important in a world. Is it hard to keep doing it, for me, yes, and for the doing of it, people are fed in the spiritual world by us using our discipline, doing our best, giving our all.

And speaking of keeping going, have you heard from “Weeds’’ yet. I know you’ve wanted to get on there as one of the characters, as you say, a “pot princess.”

I think I am over it.

And one last thing, it was something you said in the L.A. Times last year. It was about your singing. You said: “I just know there’s this joy that’s not in my life unless I’m singing.’’ Really. Talk about that.

It still is cool water to me. It’s a source of devotion and vulnerability. I guess it is my prayer and my kiss, a true Ghazel, a song and kiss of love for the higher power.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com