When she swept the board by scooping eight gongs at the 2003 Grammy Awards, a nonplussed Norah Jones confessed that she felt as if she had ‘gatecrashed someone else’s birthday party and eaten all the cake’.
A shy singer-songwriter from a small town in Texas, she had just turned 23 and was unprepared for the whirlwind that engulfed her following the release of her first album, Come Away With Me.
That debut, made while she was still working part-time as a waitress, was a mellow mix of jazz, blues and country. To her amazement, and everybody else’s, it sold 20 million copies and helped Jones become the best-selling female artist of the Noughties.
Fresh approach: Norah Jones' new album is unlike her previous records
Even her mother, Sue, was taken aback at the success. Having advised her daughter not to sign a record deal, she took to affectionately calling her ‘Snorah’ because her music was on the radio so much.
‘Come Away With Me has coloured everything I’ve done since,’ says Jones, now 33 and rather more worldly-wise. ‘It exceeded everything I expected. I’d moved to New York and signed to Blue Note, which is a prestigious jazz label, but not one known for selling millions of records.
‘It was a stressful time. When you become that huge, you can’t go and hide in the woods. You’re constantly on show. I was working 15-hour days, and life was a rollercoaster.
‘In the end, I was fine, but I wouldn’t want to go back to those days.’
Jones is charming company. Her public image is as a doe-eyed singer of sad, slow jazz numbers, but, in person, she is bright, talkative and endearingly goofy — cagy only when it comes to her private life.
Jones is charming company. Her public image is as a doe-eyed singer of sad, slow jazz numbers, but, in person, she is bright, talkative and endearingly goofy — cagy only when it comes to her private life.
Her career, too, has often confounded expectations. She has worked with rock god Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and fronts a bar band called The Little Willies (named after Willie Nelson, in case you’re wondering).
Jones first shot to prominence with her Grammy-winning album Come Away With Me
Her latest musical venture is her most ambitious yet. Shunning the jazzy tendencies of all four of her solo albums to date, she has hooked up with dance producer Brian Burton — aka Danger Mouse — for the fifth effort, Little Broken Hearts.
Burton is most famous for being a member of Gnarls Barkley alongside Cee Lo Green. His partnership with Jones — like that of Rufus Wainwright and Mark Ronson — follows the trend of pairing traditional singer-songwriters with modern dance masters.
Not that Little Broken Hearts is a dance record. Fuelled by twangy guitars, it is an experimental album that takes Jones out of her comfort zone. Her fans need not fret too much, however. The songs are still concise and tuneful, while Norah’s voice retains the languid, soulful qualities that made her a star.
The unlikely couple met last year when they collaborated on an album called Rome, a tribute to Italian film music. ‘Brian is all over the map musically, but I trust him,’ says Norah. ‘The album was like building a papier-mâché house — we kept on adding bits until it took shape.’
Jones' new album is a dance record
Like her last album, The Fall, inspired by the end of her relationship with long-term boyfriend (and bassist) Lee Alexander, Little Broken Hearts is also based on a failed romance.
And, while Jones refuses to name the man behind the new songs, the themes of guilt, bitterness and revenge seem much sharper the second time around. Tracks such as Miriam, about murdering a love rival, are certainly darker than anything she has previously sung.
‘I went through another break-up about 18 months ago,’ she says. ‘So I took my feelings and wrote about them. Whether the breakup was traumatic or not is nobody’s business.
As the daughter of Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and a mother who was a concert promoter, Norah has a rich musical heritage. But she has never traded on family ties.
Raised by her mum in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine after her parents separated, she didn’t see her father, now 92, for ten years, though the two have since become friends.
‘I had a happy childhood, but I had issues,’ she admits. ‘Not seeing my dad when I was a child was hard, but we have a great relationship now. He has such a wealth of experience, although we don’t really talk about music — maybe I should ask him for advice.’
On the evidence of Little Broken Hearts, any parental pointers can wait. The happy girl who makes a living singing sad songs is doing fine.
‘I’m not a sad person, but I’ve always been attracted to melancholy music,’ she says. ‘I find the quiet, intimate songs more powerful.’
Little Broken Hearts is out on Blue Note on Monday. Norah Jones plays the Royal Festival Hall on June 1 and 2 (gigsandtours.com).
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