Barely three years ago, Norah Jones, a piano-playing beauty with haunting eyes and a voice to match, became an unlikely superstar. Although the camera loved her, Jones should not have blown up the charts with her debut, 2002’s “Come Away With Me,” a collection of quiet, jazzy pop tunes shaded with a little country and the blues. It was much too reserved to be a monster pop album.
Plus, she seemed too shy and a little mysterious. Just 21 at the time, Jones was never heavily made up in photos; there were no MTV-ready videos.
But her record took off anyway, fueled largely by word of mouth and key TV appearances. Before she could catch her breath at the end of 2002, Jones had sold
18 million albums worldwide. And she took home five Grammys in one night. (Her debut won eight in all.)
Her sophomore album, “Feels Like Home,” essentially an extension of its predecessor, came out in April and quickly moved nearly 5 million copies.
Sudden fame unnerved her before, but Jones, now 25, has adjusted.
“I’m starting to enjoy it finally,” says the singer-musician, who’s calling from her New York home. “In the beginning, it was freaky. I’m just a musician, you know, and all of a sudden I’m supposed to be this star.”
Everywhere she turned, it seemed, her face was in some magazine. For the most part, the press gave the impression that the Texas-raised vocalist was somewhat withdrawn–too serious, a little awkward.
“I stopped reading stuff about me early on, ’cause it would screw with my head,” Jones says. “People think I’m really melancholy and romantic and all whispery. I’m not at all. I’m very direct. I think I get that from my mother.”
Jones was born in New York, but she and her mother, Sue, moved to Dallas when the singer was 4. (Indian performer Ravi Shankar is her father, but Jones refuses to discuss him; he was absent most of her life.)
Jones studied piano at Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, whose graduates include Erykah Badu and Roy Hargrove. After graduation, she entered the University of North Texas and studied jazz piano for two years before dropping out and moving to Manhattan in 1999.
By 2000, she had assembled a group with songwriter-guitarist Jesse Harris and bassist Lee Alexander, who’s also her boyfriend. The next year, Jones was signed to Blue Note Records.
Just as she was during the recording of her debut, Jones was very involved with her latest album.
“I’m a control freak,” she says. “If I’m putting my name on it, come on. Some people lay back and let the producer do everything. But I’m always there. We record everything live, and I’m there for everything–even the mixing. It’s a band effort, really.”
“Feels Like Home” is “just a reflection of me and the band. The recording is just a slice in time. That’s all,” Jones says. “I’m anxious to move on. I’m only 25. I want to have fun and play good music. As long as I’m doing the best I can do, that’s all that really matters.”
Norah Jones
When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12
Where: Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St.
Tickets: $49.50-$61
———-
Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
