Norah Jones - Feels Like Home

[Joe G]

But, jeez, is he the most irrtiating SOB in Country music today or WHAT?

I'm sure he'd be delighted to know that we think that about him.

[Alexander]

He sings that song, "I Love This Bar." He is all over the television. He is a mammoth.

Here he is playing Pro U.S.A.-style guitar. He is an innovator in this particular style.

More to the point, he sings an intensely irritating pro-USA, post-9/11 song called "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." I've never heard it all the way through, but I do recall that Keith invokes the image of "the Statue of Liberty shaking its fist," which is pretty ironic considering that it comes from France...

[Dan Gould]

Well, they are really going to gear up for this release. I swung by Borders yesterday and saw a poster in the window promoting Norah's album and encouraging people to "pre-order"!

I think she's reached the big-time.

[Guest Chaney]

More to the point, he sings an intensely irritating pro-USA, post-9/11 song called "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)."  I've never heard it all the way through, but I do recall that Keith invokes the image of "the Statue of Liberty shaking its fist," which is pretty ironic considering that it comes from France...

You can view the video of this gem on Mr. Keith's site, if you like.

TOBY KEITH: SHOCK 'N Y' ALL :roll eyes:

[Aggie87]

up...

Was looking at Steve Hoffman's BB for something or another, and came across a

Norah Jones thread.

Not that big a deal, but two comments caught my eye:

1. Someone asked if this would be coming out simultaneously in SACD format, and poster "tomd" replied:

"Blue Note told me they don't think they will be putting out anymore SACDs citing low demand and high costs.Yet- since the Come Away With Me album came out on the format last summer many more people have adopted SACD.one would think if this one sells very well also-there will be pressure to put it out on SACD as well."

Found this to be very interesting. I'm not sure who tomd is and what relationship he has with BN, or if he's just a fan and emailed them or something. Either way, if true, perhaps labels are starting to abandon the SACD format? Wonder what Greg would say about this?

2. Poster "therockman": "Excuse me for being stupid, but is Norah Jones Ravi's daughter?"

Edited January 15, 2004 by Aggie87

[Jim Alfredson]

2. Poster "therockman": "Excuse me for being stupid, but is Norah Jones Ravi's daughter?"

[Free For All]

I'm looking forward to her next one- "Tastes Like Chicken".

[jazzbo]

That information about SACD and Blue Note was also posted by Kevin Bresnahan on the AAJ board, as a quote from Blue Note.

Doesn't mean that Capitol entire are not going to put out more SACDs, and Blue Note will possibly change their tune, ESPECIALLY if they get a lot of requests for Norah SACDs.

[JSngry]

I'm looking forward to her next one- "Tastes Like Chicken".

Bet there'll be a sexy cover for THAT one!

[mgraham333]

The first track, "Sunrise" is available for listening over at the Blue Note site

Click here

[Guest Chaney]

Server's overloaded.

[JSngry]

The first track, "Sunrise" is available for listening over at the Blue Note site

Click here

Listening to it as we speak.

I dunno...it's all right, but it...kinda sounds like...Norah Jones...

[RDK]

Remember - almost two years ago now - when Norah first "broke" on the old BN board and we used to make fun of her. My how times have changed...

[Jazzmoose]

1. Someone asked if this would be coming out simultaneously in SACD format, and poster "tomd" replied:

"Blue Note told me they don't think they will be putting out anymore SACDs citing low demand and high costs.Yet- since the Come Away With Me album came out on the format last summer many more people have adopted SACD.one would think if this one sells very well also-there will be pressure to put it out on SACD as well."

Found this to be very interesting. I'm not sure who tomd is and what relationship he has with BN, or if he's just a fan and emailed them or something. Either way, if true, perhaps labels are starting to abandon the SACD format? Wonder what Greg would say about this?

How typically ignorant of you Aggie87. Just because the mundane proles with little or no intelligence fail to recognize the absolute perfection that is SACD is no reason to believe that the format will fail to reach it's obvious place at the apex of recorded music. While you may sneer at the format, anyone with an ounce of rational thought is quite aware that SACD is the wave of the future.

-always willing to lend a hand!

[chris olivarez]

Greg has highjacked Jazzmoose and snuck back on the board-Aieeee!!!!!

[Aggie87]

1.  Someone asked if this would be coming out simultaneously in SACD format, and poster "tomd" replied: 

"Blue Note told me they don't think they will be putting out anymore SACDs citing low demand and high costs.Yet- since the Come Away With Me album came out on the format last summer many more people have adopted SACD.one would think if this one sells very well also-there will be pressure to put it out on SACD as well." 

Found this to be very interesting.  I'm not sure who tomd is and what relationship he has with BN, or if he's just a fan and emailed them or something.  Either way, if true, perhaps labels are starting to abandon the SACD format?  Wonder what Greg would say about this?

How typically ignorant of you Aggie87. Just because the mundane proles with little or no intelligence fail to recognize the absolute perfection that is SACD is no reason to believe that the format will fail to reach it's obvious place at the apex of recorded music. While you may sneer at the format, anyone with an ounce of rational thought is quite aware that SACD is the wave of the future.

-always willing to lend a hand!

Thanks for enlightening me, JazzMaltz...

By the way, I really dig your stereo! B)

[Dan Gould]

Before Greg painted the wall:

[couw]

okay, now someone post that "Maltz for SACD" cover and we're complete again

[Morganized]

Greg has highjacked Jazzmoose and snuck back on the board-Aieeee!!!!!

Oh No, Looks like the Moose has been infected with Mad Greg disease!!

Say it ain't so Moose..............

[Jazzmoose]

Just a momentary problem, guys; Shirley Maclaine was giving me channelling lessons...

Does anyone else think "Quentin of Dark Shadows" when they see that photo?

[Guest Chaney]

January 25, 2004

The Anti-Diva

By ROB HOERBURGER / The New York Times (Magazine)

The gang of eight were holed up on the outskirts of Hell's Kitchen, on a blustery day in November, for their next multimillion-dollar job. Everything was going smoothly until it was the affable sideman's turn to perform. His trigger finger, usually so nimble, started twitching. He wasn't happy. They weren't happy. And so they all looked to the ringleader, a small, solid woman in the center of the room, to make the call.

''That's cool,'' said Norah Jones, leaning over the control board at Avatar Studios to Adam Levy, after he once again tried a guitar solo for a song called ''Toes.'' The gang was actually Jones and her band plus her producer and engineer; they were in the second week of recording Jones's new album, ''Feels Like Home.'' ''But let's try it again,'' she added delicately.

It is, of course, her voice that astonishes. Only now it was nothing like the singing deep, moody, yearning -- that helped make her debut album, ''Come Away With Me,'' the surprise hit and Grammy champion of 2002-2003. Her speaking voice is several registers higher and several generations lower, perkier, more ''Let's go out for some beer and pizza'' than ''I'm all alone in this deserted cafe.'' Her upbeat tone was meant to inspire Levy; it was only when he went back into the studio, out of earshot, that Jones said, with the sidelong glance of her singing self, ''I know he can do better.''

Levy resumed with a couple of different approaches -- first a light blues lilt, then a darker, heavier tint. Jones said she liked both solos but couldn't choose between them. Levy tried to break the deadlock by teasing Jones with a few mood-setters: ''Can it be darker in there?'' and ''Wanna break up with me?'' and ''Got a cigarette?'' Jones laughed but was soon pacing the room, her gleaming black hair bunched on top of her head, her dark-rimmed librarian's glasses fixed over slightly drooping eyes, her knee-length sweater wrapped around her curvy frame. She looked like some with-it choirmistress or the helpful assistant manager of a food co-op. Her crossed arms seemed to indicate not just authority but also a sort of discomfort with it. At one point she crouched under a ledge between two speakers, as if simultaneously burrowing into the sound and hiding from it might help her find the right groove. But still she could not decide. ''Oh, this has been our problem-child song,'' she said. ''Or maybe I'm just being a perfectionist.''

Such perfectionism has become her hallmark. It's what helped give ''Come Away With Me'' its preternatural sound -- no other musician in her early 20's has recently been so conversant with both Hank Williams and Hoagy Carmichael -- and the exactingness is understandable given that ''Feels Like Home'' is probably the music business's most-anticipated release of 2004. (It comes out Feb. 10.) If the new album generates a small fraction of what its predecessor did, it could keep a few developing countries running for years. The making of ''Feels Like Home'' also marks the culmination of a two-year ''tornado,'' as Jones puts it, during which she had little time for anything but touring and recording. ''I think we came out on the right end,'' she said. ''But I have no friends.''

That's not true. There's her band, plus the 17 million people worldwide who bought ''Come Away With Me,'' not to mention an entire music industry, desperate for hits, that is depending on her, even though very few artists have produced back-to-back phenomena. Just ask Alanis Morissette or Lauryn Hill.

It's a lot of weight for 24-year-old shoulders to bear, especially considering that Jones often seems as if she would like nothing better than to shoot pool with her band. And now the tornado is starting to whip up again. ''I am,'' she said, ''so tired.''

"Come Away With Me'' was more than just a force of nature. It was a small miracle. The album, with its pearly style-skimming (a plink of jazz here, a splash of country there, several lappings of pop), had the luxury of incubating during Jones's two-year apprenticeship in New York, performing in venues often barely bigger than a walk-in closet. Its low-fi sound was romantic and elegant but positively antediluvian: mostly acoustic, quiet in an age of hip-hop histrionics, something of a sonic antiboom. The greatest hope Jones had was that it would sell enough to let her make another one. But then ''Come Away With Me'' started to spread slowly, almost pointillistically, into the musical psyches of ''80-year-old grandmas and 7-year-old girls and everyone in between,'' as its producer, Arif Mardin, said recently. The success happened without the usual promotional tools, a Top 10 pop radio hit or a high-concept video, on a boutique jazz label, Blue Note, whose executives usually listen for talent first and chart positions later, if at all. Julian Fleisher, a New York nightclub singer who released his own album of smart, genre-busting pop in 2002, said: ''It was like Howard Dean. It was a grass-roots success that people heard about in their living rooms. That's where I heard it first -- in someone's living room.''

Even before the album came out, Jones herself was sick of the songs, which she had been playing for months. ''I just want to get to the next album,'' she told me two years ago. She sloughed off any suggestion that ''Come Away With Me'' might be a hit, even said she thought she would have to move out of her $1,000-a-month apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for a cheaper place. There was one occasion when her burgeoning fame did impress her; she was in Canada trying to buy a winter hat -- Jones loves hats -- and had her credit card denied, until the sales clerk recognized her as ''that singer from TV.'' Jones got a kick from the experience but figured the days of carrying her own amps to gigs wouldn't be ending any time soon.

Then those 34 million ears and eight Grammys -- five for Jones and one each for Mardin; the engineer, Jay Newland; and Jesse Harris, who wrote Jones's signature song, ''Don't Know Why'' -- changed the plan. As the album refused to budge from the Top 10, its success seemed to rankle Jones, who came from a jazz background, in which popularity and art, and popularity and cool, have inverse relationships. ''She called me up when the album was at something like two million and said, 'How can we stop it?''' said Bruce Lundvall, the president of Blue Note Records, who signed Jones in 2001. ''I said: 'What do you want me to do? I can't pull it off the market.'''

Jones chalks up Lundvall's well-worn version of events to the typical spin and yarn of the music business. ''I'm not naive,'' she said. ''I didn't think they'd pull it off the shelves. I just didn't want to do anything else to push it, like put out a dance remix or do another video. I just said: 'The record is going great on its own. Why do anything else?'''

Still, as the ride with ''Come Away With Me'' got wilder and Jones got richer, she dug in her anti-diva flats. She refused to walk down the red carpet at the Grammy Awards and showed up for a major photo session wearing a dress from Target, which she kept on. She told the photographer, ''It's who I am.''

Back in the studio, Jones folded herself into the lap of Lee Alexander, her bass player, songwriting collaborator and boyfriend. Most of the people in the world that Jones is closest to were in the room: Alexander; the guitarists, Levy and Kevin Breit; and Daru Oda and Andrew Borger. Oda, a harmony singer, has known Jones since they were 15 and met at Interlochen camp for the arts; Borger is Oda's boyfriend and also the drummer. The only person missing was Jones's mother, Sue, and even she would be there later to witness a session with Dolly Parton, who sings a duet with Jones on Alexander's song ''Creepin' In.''

''It's the group hang that's important,'' Oda said later, and indeed there were times when Jones seemed to want to be just another girl in the band. She has generously included on the record at least one song that each band member had a hand in writing, which could mean as much as six figures in publishing income to each of them. In concert, her outsize talent and exotic beauty draw all attention to her, but then she hides behind the piano, rarely saying much to the crowd or moving to center stage for a bow. ''She's getting a little better at stagecraft,'' Lundvall said, ''but she has some ways to go.''

Once Jones sprang back into action in the studio, however, it was clear that the democratic process went only so far. There were a couple of kinds of legerdemain in play. The first, of course, was musical: laying down the initial tracks for ''Carnival Town,'' Jones announced, ''We still don't have anything dreamy,'' and then produced just that: a mildly smoky drawl that conjured not just a sound but places -- roadside honky-tonks and half-empty bedrooms and big moons, a voice of what-ifs and could-bes and might-have-beens. The song seemed so simple -- its hook, ''Is it lohhhhhne-ly,'' clamped on instantly and wouldn't let go -- but was in fact sophisticated, with surprising chords and note intervals difficult to sing. Jones nailed her vocal on the first take. It's no wonder so many other artists have asked her to sing with them, from Parton to Willie Nelson to Ray Charles to the hip-hop duo OutKast to Elmo of ''Sesame Street'': she has a type AB voice with type O compatibility.

Beyond the consummate musicality, though, ''Carnival Town'' was also where her ''I'm just one of the guys'' posture collapsed. When Mardin, the producer, told her that her vocal was good, she said, ''Too bad, because the rest of it stank'' -- referring to the instrumental track, which included her own piano. When Mardin, who has coaxed career-best performances out of high-end female singers like Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and Carly Simon, suggested a different lyric, she practically ignored him. In fact, there were times when the producer seemed to be little more than a chaperon, though later, in a display of Old World chivalry -- he was born in Turkey 71 years ago -- he spoke to Jones quietly in the soundproof booth. Jones didn't change the lyric, but she seemed more relaxed after Mardin's visit.

All the band members follow Jones's self-effacing lead; the ink still seems wet on the ''former'' part of their former lives: Oda, a ''hopeful downtown cocktail waitress'' with a wrist tattoo and one white eyebrow; the lanky, boyish Borger, who until joining Jones's band supplemented his drumming gigs by building the occasional kitchen; and Alexander, the fleece-vested journeyman bassist who suddenly found himself a celebrity songwriter thanks to his contributions on ''Come Away With Me.'' There's a geek-chic aura to the group, who seem to understand the difference between being hip, a transitory, exclusive state, and cool, permanent and inclusive and unconcerned with others' perceptions.

The band is also Jones's protection from the UV rays of celebrity. Around the time that she was suddenly being anointed the Savior of Adult Pop Music, the pressure became so intense that Jones started to crack. ''We were in Dallas opening for John Mayer,'' Oda said, ''and she was getting snippy, projecting all this negative energy on us. Lee felt it the most. I had to tell her that I didn't really like the way she was acting, that it didn't make us feel good.'' Jones admitted as much: ''It was like when I first started doing all these jazz gigs in New York, some that I loved but some that I hated. And I thought if I had to keep doing them, I would just quit. Or do the ones I liked and wait tables the rest of the time.''

But she didn't quit; she just found coping mechanisms for the more difficult moments, like when she was stuck in a hotel in Paris doing interviews while the rest of the band did the town. ''She stormed into my room one day in Italy at 2 in the morning and started writing 'NoJo's Rules of Sanity,''' Oda said. ''No. 1: No press; No. 2: Refer to No. 1; and so on.'' At the post-Grammy party, Jones found herself cut off from the band, trapped behind a parade of 200 well-wishers, including the prenuptial Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. She got through it graciously, thanks in part to a steady flow of vodka martinis and cigarettes, but later said that she ''hated that party. We had another one all by ourselves the next day.''

The prolonged success of ''Come Away With Me'' did galvanize the band. By playing so many concerts, they came to understand one another's musical shorthand innately, and that made for fast recording once they got back into the studio. In fact the new record was almost finished after a week of sessions in April, when the band recorded 11 songs they had worked out on the road. There was talk of releasing the album in October, which spiked the hopes of the ledgerkeepers at Blue Note.

But Jones wanted the songs to develop some more and decided to reconvene the band after the summer tour. Which meant that with the album due on Dec. 17, 22 songs -- 11 more had come into play -- had to be finished in three weeks. (Jones pared down the lineup later.)

By the time I visited the studio again in early December, there was, incredibly, only one song left to record, ''The Prettiest Thing,'' written by Jones, Alexander and Richard Julian, a sometime member of the Jones gang. Things were slightly knottier this time -- Julian questioned a lyric change Jones made, and Jones couldn't find the touch she wanted on the Wurlitzer keyboard -- but in the end it was still like deep-tissue musical massage. Oda, sitting in the corner knitting a sweater, was practically moving her needles in time to it.

It all seemed too easy. Great art would seem to require more than just a few speed bumps. ''Oh, who's to say the album is great art?'' Jones said. Borger would tell me later: ''I don't think the Beatles fought on their second record. Maybe by the time we get to making our 'Revolver,' we'll be fighting tooth and nail. But if we could make a record as good as 'Revolver,' we'll fight tooth and nail.''

Jones wandered into the control room while the technicians checked the Wurlitzer. And suddenly she was back to acting her age. ''Did you see Justin Timberlake on 'Saturday Night Live' last night?'' she asked in her modern-dorm-room register. ''His acting was so good.'' What did she think of his music? ''I only know the singles,'' she said. ''They're cool. I do want to get the new Ryan Adams album.'' Adams, the alt-country rocker who often writes tortured songs about the newly out of love, is a big favorite. ''But I just haven't had time to buy records lately.''

About the only thing that Jones has had time for beyond her own music is food. She loves to eat. Her most indelible memory of the Grammy Awards is that she almost fainted, not from hearing titans like Bonnie Raitt, Aretha Franklin and Peter Gabriel call her name over and over but from the lack of food backstage all day. When the meal break came in the studio, Jones pored over the multi-page-Indian-takeout menu and blurted: ''Lamb. Can we please have lamb?'' And when I suggested that we meet to talk outside the studio, Jones offered to make me dinner. The menu choices were catfish and spaghetti with homemade sauce. ''How hot can you take it?'' she asked.

Jones and Alexander live in a postwar luxury building overlooking the West Side Highway, a duplex that's just a temporary stop while they have a loft -- Jones's only big purchase so far with her newfound gazillions -- renovated in the East Village.

Jones arrived at her place after I did, in her usual hide-in-plain-sight garb, a huge parka and a ski hat. She generally walks the streets unaccosted, her beauty slightly muted by her off-the-rack style. Jones says she does not purposely try to disguise herself -- ''Nobody recognizes me anyway'' -- it's just how she dresses. The apartment is hardly haute, either: walking around the first floor, you can see just how little time Jones has had for anything extramusical. There's a piano, Alexander's ceiling-high double bass, silos of CD's, audiogeek equipment that Alexander bought off eBay, but no newspapers, no art, no real decor, except the silver foil Christmas decoration that Jones's mother pinned to the ceiling. The room does have a distinct temperature: all the music, from a Ray Charles box set to a John Prine LP to the current Blur CD to the Thorens turntable and speakers with tubes, even the books -- David Sedaris, Sylvia Plath, ''Vanity Fair'' -- are set to the same cultural thermostat, about 44 degrees F.

Because she spent all day going over artwork for the album, she did not have time to buy groceries, and so we ordered in. ''Do you like Lucinda?'' she asked, putting on Lucinda Williams's latest CD, ''World Without Tears.'' Jones praised Williams's ''raw, wet'' sound. ''It's O.K. if you don't. But this first song just kills me.''

She settled in on the sofa, in front of a copy of ''Come Away With Me'' sitting on the coffee table. ''It has plenty of flaws,'' she said, pointing to the CD. ''I mean, I'm really proud of it, but maybe it's a little too mellow.'' Indeed, the main criticism of the record was its hypothyroid pace, that it was an album you'd hear in Starbucks. It certainly isn't raw and wet. ''I sound younger on it,'' Jones continued. ''I like this new record, but not better; it's just different. I suppose I could be developing other annoying affectations. Everybody said how serious I was, how forlorn'' -- she spread her fingers and pulled her cheeks down for a fun-house-mirror effect -- ''but I'm not. I'm really silly and dorky.'' Conspicuously missing from sight were any of her five Grammys. ''Oh, they're in the closet. I didn't want my friends to come over and say, 'Who does she think she is, Miss Grammy Whammy?'''

I wondered if all of this dodge was just her way of dealing with the pressure of the follow-up, if the only way she could move on from ''Come Away With Me'' -- or cope with its success -- was to ignore or even disparage it. ''How could I not think about it, when every day for six months somebody, my aunt, a journalist, some stranger on the street, asks me how I feel trying to follow up a 17-million seller?'' she said. ''But a record is just a snapshot of where you are at any time. Making records is fun. It's not some big statement. You're allowed to make mistakes.''

Alexander arrived, and the food -- burritos, chips, guacamole -- wasn't far behind. We scooped and speared from one another's heaping platters, except for the guacamole, because Jones ordered individual tubs of it. ''You're not a germophobe, right?'' Jones said. ''I mean, it's O.K. if you are.'' I'm not, but we seemed to have hit upon a motif: ''It's O.K. if you are/aren't/do/don't.'' Jones will not point fingers at anyone other than herself, or explain her opinions too deeply, even on matters as innocuous as why she prefers the East Village to the West. She has a temper, she said, but it flared only when I asked about the fact that she occasionally smokes. ''I'm trying to quit,'' she said, slamming her hands on the kitchen table.

Alexander, tall and handsome, like a cross between a grown-up Brady brother and a grown-up Albert Brooks, cleared the plates. ''He's a good dish-doer,'' Jones said. Alexander smirked over his shoulder: ''Since I'm the one who does them, I want to get this stuff off before I have to use a chisel.'' Jones and Alexander have been a couple for four years, and their personal and professional lives have bled together. They write songs about the most private matters -- which then become very public. ''I look at him sometimes and say, 'Oh, you're my boyfriend,''' Jones said plaintively. But she added that if the success had changed her in any substantially negative way, Alexander, who she said is ''one of the all-time nice guys,'' wouldn't have stayed around. ''We're still the same people,'' Oda had told me. ''We all still hang out in the same crummy bars and drink the same crummy beer. I think Norah and Lee actually need to find ways to spend money for tax purposes.''

It was Alexander, quiet through most of dinner, who finally said, ''This new album did get inside our heads a little more.'' He is the one who occasionally turns to Jones and asks, ''Can you believe that 17 million people listened to our record?'' Maybe because he's about 10 years older than Jones, he's not afraid to occasionally reflect the sense not just that his ship has come in but also that it will be docked for a while. But Jones treats such talk like an allergen, as if opening even the smallest vent would contaminate her art and her cool. ''Sometimes I really feel I have to live my life as if none of this happened,'' she said.

Though Jones claims that she doesn't read much of what's written about her, she does seem to have bought into the other major criticism of ''Come Away With Me'' -- that she did not write most of its songs. Considering her voice, that criticism sounds as valid as the one that says that Bob Dylan should take singing lessons and do a Cole Porter album. This time around, Jones was the writer or co-writer of almost half of the songs. I asked if this direction served her art.

''Oh, maybe next time I'll take six months off and really learn how to write songs,'' she said, adding that she has heard the calls for her to record standards. ''But I know all the original versions by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and the rest, and there's no point in anybody else doing them. Someday I'll do an album of standards just for my mom.''

Jones's mother, Sue, and her father, the Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar, are sacrosanct subjects for her. She was the product of a relationship they had in the late 70's, and the only thing Jones will say about Shankar is that they are on good terms now after years of estrangement. Any mention of Shankar used to irritate Jones, as she didn't want anyone to think she was riding on his coattails. ''Now people ask if we'll ever do a duet,'' she said incredulously. ''I mean, I don't know much about Indian classical music, and he certainly doesn't know about Ryan Adams. Not to be confused with Bryan Adams,'' she said, referring to the workmanlike Canadian rocker popular when she was growing up. But she was quick to add, ''Not that there's anything wrong with Bryan Adams.'' Coolness without claws, the old-fashioned kind, just like Jones's music and so much of her life.

Jones's mother, meanwhile, has been just as wary of her daughter's success, though it was her weaning of Jones on a variegated record collection that set Jones on her path. (There probably weren't many other 8-year-olds growing up in Texas listening to vintage Aretha Franklin in 1987.) Jones said, ''When we won the fifth Grammy, the one for Album of the Year, she was in the back of the audience, and she groaned, 'Oh, God, not another one.'''

So with her parents basically off limits, talk drifted back to music, as it always does, and to her hopes for ''Feels Like Home'' and the success of ''Come Away With Me.'' ''I'm only 24. How lucky have I been to have made that kind of record? If one-tenth of the people like this one, that's still more than anybody's wildest expectations.

''It's important to remember that you're not all that. It would be great if all those people like this new record. But it's O.K. if they don't.''

The day before our dinner, I heard ''Feels Like Home'' start to finish for the first time, on a boombox in a crowded, unheated back room at the studio. Based on what had been coming out of the sessions, I had high expectations. And, in fact, some of the songs were truly gorgeous. But overall an alt-country orthodoxy seemed to rule: it was heavy on the twang, light on the torch.

When I opened the door to leave, I found Jones herself in the outer room. Because I was the first person from the outside to hear the record, I thought she might ask my opinion. She didn't. ''I'm just not a needy person,'' she told me the next day. ''I don't crave people's approval.''

And that could be the key to her art and her success: Norah Jones knows how to say no. To a music business that had been deaf to her kind of music; to the press; to fashionistas of all kinds; and now maybe even to millions of fans who are hoping for another ''Come Away With Me.'' ''Norah is very true to her musicality,'' Lundvall, Blue Note's president, said. ''She's made an artistic statement that will be a success no matter how much it sells.''

Though the songs on ''Feels Like Home'' are more challenging, less easy on the ears, they do start to take root after a few listens. The album will certainly be a big hit, even if it doesn't sell into the stratosphere or win her another armload of Grammys. Miracles are tough acts to follow, anyway. ''What's the point in making the same record over and over?'' Jones said. ''You can't go back.'' No, but considering that she has made what she seems to think is a very cool album with her very cool boyfriend and her very cool band, maybe you don't have to lose yourself along the way.

Rob Hoerburger, an editor of the magazine, is co-author of ''My Name Is Love: The Darlene Love Story.''

[Ed S]

NoJo ???? B)

[Ed S]

It says somewhere in the article that "NoJo" is the daughter of Ravi Shankar. Is this true? Can someone confirm this?

[catesta]

It says somewhere in the article that "NoJo" is the daughter of Ravi Shankar.  Is this true?  Can someone confirm this?

I know her father is Ravi something or other, I want to say it's Finklestein, but it could very well be Shankar.

I bet Out2Lunch knows.

Edited January 23, 2004 by catesta

[Guest Chaney]

Dad's name is Ravi Oli.