The Ugly One with the Jewels (full title: The Ugly One with the Jewels and Other Stories: A Reading from Stories From the Nerve Bible) is the title of a primarily spoken-word album released by Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...

 on Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

 in 1995, the last of her 7-album deal that she signed in the early 1980s.

An immediate follow-up to her album of only a few months earlier, Bright Red

Bright Red

Bright Red is the title of performance artist Laurie Anderson's sixth album, released by Warner Bros. in 1994.The album continues the more pop-oriented direction Anderson launched with Strange Angels...

, The Ugly One with the Jewels consisted of stories and monologues taken from Anderson's performance piece Stories from the Nerve Bible. Many of the pieces are autobiographical (including one in which she reminisces about working on stage with the late comic Andy Kaufman

Andy Kaufman

Andrew Geoffrey "Andy" Kaufman was an American entertainer, actor and performance artist. While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman did not consider himself one...

). The album was recorded live in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Although most of the pieces are spoken word, they have musical accompaniment, with the exception of "The Cultural Ambassador".

Two previously recorded pieces are performed again on this album: the poem "White Lily", which was earlier performed in Anderson's 1986 concert film Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave (1986 film)

Home of the Brave is a 1986 American concert film featuring the music of Laurie Anderson, who also directed the movie. The film's full on-screen title is Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson. The performances were filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, NJ during the summer of 1985.The...

, and "Same Time Tomorrow", which closes this album just as it closed Bright Red.

Discounting a greatest hits collection which followed in 2000 (Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology

Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology

Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology is a retrospective of the seven albums recorded by American experimental music composer Laurie Anderson for Warner Bros...

), this was the final Laurie Anderson album to be released by the main Warner Bros. Records label. Commencing with her next new release, Life on a String, Anderson moved to the Warner subsidiary label, Nonesuch Records

Nonesuch Records

Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...

.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Laurie Anderson

1. "The End of the World" – 5:00
2. "The Salesman" – 3:19
3. "The Night Flight from Houston" – 1:33
4. "Word of Mouth" – 4:50
5. "The Soul is a Bird" – 3:56
6. "The Ouija Board" – 4:11
7. "The Ugly One with the Jewels" – 5:06
8. "The Geographic North Pole" – 5:22
9. "John Lilly" – 3:34
10. "The Rotowhirl" – 3:54
11. "On the Way to Jerusalem" – 1:20
12. "The Hollywood Strangler" – 1:50
13. "Maria Teresa Teresa Maria" – 5:43
14. "Someone Else's Dream" – 2:25
15. "White Lily" – 1:17
16. "The Mysterious 'J'" – 2:57
17. "The Cultural Ambassador" – 6:47
18. "Same Time Tomorrow" – 7:49

Personnel

• Laurie Anderson - vocals, keyboards, violin
• Joey Baron
  Joey Baron
  Joey Baron is an American avant-garde jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn, and John Zorn...
  
   - drums
• Cyro Baptista
  Cyro Baptista
  Cyro Baptista is a Brazilian musician, teacher, and recording artist specializing in percussion in the genres of jazz and world music....
  
   - gong, surdo
• Greg Cohen
  Greg Cohen
  A native of Los Angeles, bassist Greg Cohen has been playing in various acclaimed music groups since the '60s. He is perhaps best known for his work with John Zorn's Masada quartet; more recently he has been touring with Ornette Coleman, and performed on Coleman's much-praised Sound Grammar...
  
  - bass, guitar, keyboards