Norah Jones was three weeks away from her 23rd birthday when she performed on WYEP March 3, 2002. She was barely known outside of a few aficionados of jazz music at the time.
Her first album, “Come Away With Me” had only recently been released, and she was preparing for a show at Club Cafe. Within a year she would sweep the Grammy Award’s top honors, winning Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist. She would go on to become a top selling artist, filling arenas and concert halls worldwide.
This interview, conducted by WYEP’s former Music Director, Chris Griffin, captures an intimate moment in the career of a budding star. Norah is shy and unassuming, but unquestionably talented.
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Chris Griffin: Many people listening to WYEP first came to know you through some contributions you did with Charlie Hunter on “Notes from the Analog Playground,” I believe. And then, it seemed like a very short period of time later, “Come away with me” appears for most people out of the blue. How did you get hooked up with Charlie and what was happening between the Charlie Hunter disc hit, and then you come out with your own project?
Norah Jones: Well, I was already recording some for Blue Note, and that's how I met Charlie, because he's on the same label, and I guess we recorded that sometime last February, and, I was making my album all summer, so that's what happened.
Griffin: So you were working on both projects almost nearly simultaneously, and your album has been received incredibly well by the rock press and as well as by the web listeners. Did you expect that? Did you have expectations when you're in the studio thinking, how is this going to be perceived? Were you expecting any of this?
Jones: I mean, no, not at all. I was just trying to make a record and just trying to make a good first record. That's all I was worried about. But. And this has all been wonderful. It's been already more than I expected, so I'm happy.
Griffin: Everybody's talking about it as a jazz album. A pop album, with a little country swing, blues influences. And I've described it as more of a folk album, not guitar based, but more of a key based, folk album. How do you how do you hear your own work? I mean, if you describe your work in any particular way.
Jones: I always fumble when I try to describe it. It's really simple. It's not very complicated. But for some reason it kind of it falls in between all the musicians I play with, I know we all like different things. We all like rhythm and blues. We all love jazz, Bob Dylan, that kind of stuff. It all comes out in the music, sort of all of our different influences, but it's just simple. It's a very song-oriented album. It's just simple songs, and we did them in the most honest way we could, that we try to be honest to the songs and just do them the way they should be done.
Griffin: I guess a song like that, you absolutely have to be honest, there's not much of room to hide behind any good songs.
Jones: You don't have to do too much too.
Griffin: We were just listening to the cover “Dish” earlier and you were really taken with the Gillian Welch, you know, talking about Alison Krauss here. Where do those fit in? I know with a you do some Hank Williams on your debut, and you cover Hoagy Carmichael with those four artists. I mean, you're covering some big ground, but you find a commonality on your album. How does that all tie together for you?
Jones: I don't know. I hope it sounds like that. I'm glad that sounds like that to you. I guess it ties in because I just love the songs and they're all beautiful songs, and we do them very simply, I think. I guess that's how it ties in.
Griffin: I was zipping around, doing a little research, for this very moment, talked about your mother's record collection in your grandmother's record collection. What were you listening to? And how has that impacted you now as you're out here actually making your own music?
Jones: My mom has about every Ray Charles record. She loved him since she was a teenager, so that was cool. That's a great, great collection. And she had Billie Holiday. She had a lot of Brazilian music too. I’d go to my grandma's house and I’d listen to her country music. Willie Nelson did the classic country, you know, Hank Williams, that kind of stuff. I that's what I listen to growing up. And then I got into jazz in high school.
Griffin: And you had a chance to sit down with Willie?
Jones: Yeah, we opened up for him for four nights in San Francisco, and it was amazing. And I got to sing a song with him. It was so cool.
Griffin: In that moment, are you able to function in front of Willie Nelson knowing that?
Jones: No.It was cool. Opening is cool. I really like opening for people. And, with him, it was just amazing. The crowd was really cool to us, which they didn't have to be, you know, they were there to party and see Willie and they were good to us. So that was fun meeting Willie. I was like, I didn't know what to say, but he's so nice. He just gave me a hug and we just sat down and chatted. He's so cool. He makes you feel comfortable.
Griffin: How's New York City for you?
Jones: It's great. I love New York. It's been really good to me.
Griffin: Your roots are from Texas and you're now in New York. And that, facilitated by your musical endeavors or just time to get out of Texas.
Jones: Kind of both. I mean, I was in college in Texas. I didn't finish college. I just went for two years. I came to New York, I was supposed to just visit, and I ended up staying because it's sort of intoxicating. It's a beautiful place, especially for music.
Griffin: So and I guess when you think about, blues, it's not very long in the conversation before you come across the name of Chess Records and you think of soul and you come across the name of Motown, and it's, you start talking about jazz, and Blue Note is pretty much right at the top of the list, and you're now part of that legacy of Blue Note Records.
Jones: And it's crazy.
Griffin: How do you feel about that?
Jones: Oh, it's a great label. And it's yeah, it's legendary. It's really cool to be on the label. The funny thing is, most people hear the record, they don't really think it's a jazz record. But I do come from playing mostly jazz for about six years. That's what I did. So this is just the evolution I've taken with jazz, I've just gone into other things. But it's a beautiful label, and the people that work there are all real music lovers and that's what makes it. That's why they have good music on the label. They're not trying to, you know, mass market millions of records of stuff that they know will sell. They just put out good music that might not always sell.
Griffin: On the album, not only do you sing it and perform. You produce and you write the songs. Which hat? How do you wear all those hats? When you come to make an album? And are you comfortable wearing all those hats?
Jones: Well, luckily, I didn't wear all those hats for all the songs. I only co-produced a couple of tracks and wrote about two and a half of them, so I thought I had to do a whole album like that. I would have really been stressed, but I yeah, I'm new to all of it basically. I mean, I'm not new at singing and playing the piano, but I'm new at making records and writing songs. I'm very new at that, so I'm just sort of finding my thing and rolling along trying to figure it out. And this is my first attempt.
Griffin: And you did have some help along here?
Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Griffin: RF Martin, produced a little bit of this work.
Jones: He produced most of it. Yeah.
Griffin: Aretha and Dusty and Willie and, I mean, the list goes on and on with his work. How did that association come about?
Jones: Well, it was Blue Note’s idea. They wanted to put me with someone who really knew kind of what they were doing because they knew I didn't. But someone good that would be not overwhelming. Someone that wouldn't overshadow me because I wanted very minimal production on this. I didn't want a big production extravaganza. So he was great. He's a legend and he's adorable and he's the nicest person in the world. He's so cool to work with. Everybody really loved working with him. He's totally easygoing, like we were all nervous the first day, and then after that it was like, we're just making jokes the whole time because he's great.
Griffin: Well, you said not knowing what you're doing, but not knowing what you're doing allow you to do things, discover new ways of doing things. I mean, if you if you don't know that you're not supposed to put that word or use a rhyming pattern or whatever, allow you to write a song or twist that knob.
Jones: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. And beginner's luck sometimes works out, you know? But, yeah, like, I wrote one song, and I really liked it. And then after that, I couldn't write any more songs for about a year because I didn't know how I wrote one song. So, I didn't know how to get to the next song.
Griffin: That's just the life experience of walking through it.
Jones: Yeah, I'll figure it out eventually.
Griffin: What's next? I mean, you have the album, you're out on the road. Where are things going for you?
Jones: Well, we're gonna go cross-country this month. We're going to be gone for about five weeks. Six weeks maybe. So there's going to be a lot of fun because we get to go to Nashville, Texas, New Orleans, Atlanta and California. We're going everywhere but more in the southern area. So that'll be I'm looking forward to that because I like to do road trips. I grew up doing that with my mom, so I enjoy it because I don't have to drive so I don't have a license, so I'm not the one driving by it.
Griffin: But being involved in this profession allows you to get out and do that on a regular basis.
Jones: Unfortunately, when you're traveling, playing, you got to do soundcheck, then you just want to sleep the next morning, so you don't get to really see much of anything. But I think you do more going cross country than you do fly in places.
Griffin: And you're going to be hooking up with John Mayer.
Jones: Yeah, that's going to be fun. We're going to open up for him for about two weeks.
Griffin: Who is fantastic, by the way. And, check him out if you can, for those of you listening out there, but, in the travel thing, are you going to try to do another album somewhere down the line, or are you just going to ride this one out for a while?
Jones: I really just want to get on the road and play a lot. That's what we do. So it's been hard making the album and then waiting and waiting for it to come out before we can go out. So we're excited to get out there. I want to eventually make another record, hopefully start at least before the end of the year, because I'm ready to move on. We finish this in August and I mean, it's my first record, I like it, I love it, but I'm ready to get back in the studio because it's a lot of fun recording.
Griffin: You do enjoy the process.
Jones: Yeah. It's amazing. It's so fun.
Griffin: And the dissection of your musical ideas and mixing them down into actual little compartments that then all come together for an.
Jones: Album and everyone else's ideas. It's a really fun process.
Griffin: Nora, thank you so very much for taking the time to come in and play for us today.
Jones Thanks. It was fun.
