DEBUT STILL DAZZLES
SINGER-SONGWRITER NORAH JONES COMES TO SAN DIEGO TO CELEBRATE THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER FIRST ALBUM, ‘COME AWAY WITH ME’
Norah Jones vividly recalls the long walk she took in New York City on Feb. 24, 2003. It was the day after her chart-topping debut album, “Come Away With Me,” earned her six Grammy Awards — including Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist — during a telecast that drew nearly 30 million viewers in the U.S. alone.
But what made the then-23-year-old singersongwriter’s winter walk memorable isn’t what happened, but what didn’t.
“Nobody even recognized me!” recalled Jones, laughing with delight. “I was always very anonymous. I was never famous.’ ”
Then and now, maintaining a low profile has suited this New York-born, Texas-raised troubadour just fine.
Her ability to resolutely remain out of the spotlight when not onstage is all the more impressive for several reasons.
Jones’ gently captivating debut album has sold more than 27 million copies worldwide, while her overall album sales now exceed 50 million.
Her very high-profile musical collaborators have ranged from Willie Nelson, Keith Richards and Wynton Marsalis to Foo Fighters, Wayne Shorter and Tony Bennett.
And her father is the late Indian music legend Ravi Shankar. She quietly visited him a number of times at the Encinitas home he shared with his wife, Sukanya, and Norah’s half-sister, acclaimed sitar player Anoushka Shankar. The two siblings, who met for the first time in 1997 as teenagers, memorably recorded together on Anoushka’s 2013 album “Traces of You.”
Jones will perform in San Diego on Tuesday at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. On Monday, she launched a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Come Away With Me,” one of the bestselling albums of this century.
Staying grounded
How, one wonders, has Jones remained so grounded and free of any of the affectations of stardom, let alone stayed out of the spotlight for so long when not performing?
“I think that’s partly due to my mom, my friends and the people around me,” replied the married mother of two, speaking last week from Seattle. “Also, I was signed to a serious record label. I had an amazing publicist and marketing guy, but they were not courting that kind of (high-profile coverage).”
Her label, Blue Note, has been the most famous record company for jazz since shortly after its inception in 1939. Its roster includes the sublime singer Cassandra Wilson, who — with Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan — is one of Jones’ all-time favorites.
An alto saxophonist-turned-pianist and singer, Jones was signed by Blue Note when she was 21. “Come Away With Me” was released when she was 22, after two different recording sessions with two very different producers, Craig Street and Arif Mardin.
The recently released three-CD “Come Away With Me” 20th anniversary box set features a remastered version of the final, Mardinproduced album. It also includes the earlier sessions she did with Street, plus a trove of