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Geethali Norah Jones
Shankar
Norah Jones (born
Geethali Norah Jones Shankar on March 30, 1979) is an American singer,
songwriter, pianist, and occasional actress. Jones's career was launched
with her massively successful 2002 debut album Come Away with Me, a
contemporary pop album with a sensual, plaintive soul/folk/country
tinge, that sold 20 million copies worldwide and received eight Grammy
Awards, including Jones's award as Best New Artist. Jones's second
album, Feels like Home, was released in 2004 to high sales. In 2006 she
released an album as part of the country band The Little Willies.
Education and musical influences:
Norah Jones was born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar in New York City, New
York, but later changed her name officially to Norah Jones at age 16.
She is the daughter of an Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and Sue
Jones, and is the half-sister of musician Anoushka Shankar, Ravi
Shankar's daughter from his second marriage. She spent her childhood
with her mother, who moved to Dallas, Texas, when Norah was four. She
has always liked the music of Bill Evans and Billie Holiday among others
from the 'oldies' section. Norah has had a profound appreciation for the
music and finds it intriguing and relieving. She has been quoted as
saying, "My mom had this eight-album Billie Holiday set, I picked out
one disc that I liked and played that over and over again; 'You Go to My
Head', that was my favorite..."
Jones began singing in church choirs, taking piano lessons, and even
briefly trying out the alto saxophone. She attended Interlochen Arts
Camp, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual
Arts in Dallas, Texas, and the University of North Texas, where she
majored in jazz piano, and won Best Student Music Awards for Best Jazz
Vocalist (twice, in 1996 and 1997) and Best Original Composition (1996).
In 1999, two years into the program, Norah left for New York City.
Career and accolades:
Jones played with numerous artists and bands including Wax Poetic and
the Peter Malick Group. Jones performed quite frequently with guitarist
Charlie Hunter in 2001 and appeared on Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love
Below album in a duet with André 3000 in 2003. While Jones is best-known
for her sultry-yet-powerful vocal style, often compared to that of
Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, her abilities as a jazz pianist have
likewise been celebrated. On January 19, 2003 Jones appeared as a guest
on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR performing jazz standards
including "September in the Rain" and "I Can't Get Started", and later
that year she appeared with McPartland again at the Tanglewood Jazz
Festival, performing more standards such as "Lover Man" and "Walking My
Baby Back Home". She has performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in
both 2004 and 2005.
Her debut album, Come Away with Me, debuted in February 2002 and was
instantly celebrated for its blending of mellow, acoustic pop with soul
and country. It hit number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with single
"Don't Know Why" hitting number one on the Top 40 Adult Recurrents in
2003.
Jones walked away from the Grammy Awards of 2003 with eight awards. By
receiving "Record of the Year", "Album of the Year", "Song of the Year",
and "Best New Artist" honors all in 2003, Jones was the first artist to
sweep the "Big Four", or the four most prestigious Grammy awards, since
Christopher Cross did so in the Grammy Awards of 1981. The "Song of the
Year" award went to Jesse Harris for writing "Don't Know Why", but
because Jones performed the song, she is associated with winning "Song
of the Year" as well. Of the eight awards that came from Come Away with
Me at the 2003 Grammy Awards, Jones personally received five awards with
the other three awards attributed to the album itself. "Don't know why"
was also performed at Sesame Street, in which Norah changed the lyrics
to "Don't know why Y didn't come" and thereby introduced the letter Y to
the young audience.
Jones performing at London's Hammersmith Apollo on April 23, 2003.Her
second album, Feels like Home, was released on February 9, 2004. Rather
than repeat the softer, jazz mood of Come Away with Me, her second album
was influenced by country music. Within a week of its release, Feels
like Home had sold over a million copies, making it the highest-selling
album in the history of Blue Note Records. In that same year, Time
magazine listed Jones among the most influential people of 2004.
Jones received three awards at the Grammy Awards of 2005, two for her
"Record of the Year" collaboration with Ray Charles on the song "Here We
Go Again". That year, Norah Jones appeared on the self-titled record by
Amos Lee.
In the latter part of 2003, rumors emerged that veteran Indian filmmaker
Dev Anand was planning to make the film Song of Life, inspired by Norah
Jones's troubled relationship with her father, Ravi Shankar. Both Jones
and Shankar were enraged by the rumors and Jones's comments were, "He [Anand]
has no idea of our story, and he's not going to represent it in a
truthful way, I'm sure. It's sad because it's personal stuff and
nobody's business but ours."
Norah Jones also collaborated with the Foo Fighters on their 2005 record
In Your Honor, singing vocals with Dave Grohl on "Virginia Moon". The
song was nominated for a "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with
Vocal" in 2006.
In February 2006, Screen International reported that Norah Jones would
make her acting debut in a film by 2046 and Chungking Express director
Wong Kar-wai. The film called My Blueberry Nights, would be Wong Kai-wai's
English language debut and will be partly funded by Studio Canal and Jet
Tone Productions.
Norah Jones article from: Wikipedia - The Free
Encyclopedia
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