Norah Jones went from lounge singer to five Grammys in one night
A three-track demo passed along by a bandleader's wife landed Norah Jones at Blue Note, where executives worried about her direction but let her find it. Her debut, Come Away with Me, entered the chart at No. 139, climbed to No. 1 and sold over 27 million copies.
Named Geethali Norah Jones Shankar at birth in Manhattan on March 30, 1979, she is the daughter of concert producer Sue Jones and the Bengali musician Ravi Shankar. Following their 1986 separation she grew up with her mother in Grapevine, Texas, singing solos in a Methodist church, playing alto saxophone in the school band and formally taking the name Norah Jones at 16. Her mother's Billie Holiday box set was a lasting influence, and she twice won Down Beat's student award for best jazz vocalist, in 1996 and 1997.
While studying jazz piano at the University of North Texas, she gave a lift to a visiting band whose friend Jesse Harris later began mailing her songs. She moved to New York in 1999 and worked as a lounge singer. Blue Note's president Bruce Lundvall and scout Brian Bacchus signed her, and she cut early demos with producer Jay Newland on October 8 and 9, 2000.
Released in 2002, Come Away with Me blended jazz with country, folk and pop. At the 45th Grammys she converted five of eight nominations into wins, including Album of the Year and Best New Artist, tying the record for a woman in one night; Harris took Song of the Year for Don't Know Why. She was the first person of South Asian descent to win five at a single ceremony.
Later albums kept selling, with Not Too Late, released on January 30, 2007, the first she wrote or co-wrote entirely. That year she made her acting debut in Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights. For the 2000s, Billboard ranked no jazz artist above her, and by 2023 she had sold more than 53 million albums and won ten Grammys.
Source: Norah Jones
