Jones' fame finally 'Feels Like Home'

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Norah Jones' concert in Honolulu this weekend, following a tour in Japan, is sold out. Clay Patrick McBride Norah Jones 8 p.m. Saturday Blaisdell Arena Sold out

The piano-playing jazz/pop vocalist, 26, is heading this way after a tour of Japan. She was unavailable for an interview.

At first seemingly shy and surprised at the popularity of her music in a world full of Eminem and BeyoncÚ, Jones has since adjusted to her fame.

"I'm starting to enjoy it finally," she told the Baltimore Sun in August. "In the beginning, it was freaky. I'm just a musician, you know, and all of a sudden I'm supposed to be this star."

Everywhere she turned, it seemed, her face was in some magazine. Writers and critics went on and on about her rootsy, slightly folkish approach to jazz-pop balladry — a style Cassandra Wilson had mastered nearly a decade before Jones appeared.

Jones was born in New York, but she and her mother, Sue, moved to Dallas when the singer was 4. (Sitarist Ravi Shankar is her father, but Jones refuses to discuss the guy; he was absent most of her life.) Sue fostered the artist's love for music early on, surrounding her with the sounds of Billie Holiday, Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin and others.

Jones studied piano at Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, whose graduates include Erykah Badu and Roy Hargrove. While in high school, she played gigs in coffee houses around the city. After graduation, she entered the University of North Texas and studied jazz piano for two years before dropping out and moving to Manhattan in 1999.

Jones wanted to pursue a career in New York's ever-vibrant music scene. "I was a little depressed at first," she said. "In New York, you feel lonely surrounded by millions of people. In Texas, after I played two gigs, I had money to spare after the rent was paid. It wasn't like that in New York."

By 2000, she had assembled a group with songwriter-guitarist Jesse Harris and bassist Lee Alexander, who's also her boyfriend. The next year, Jones was signed to Blue Note Records.

After early recording sessions were rejected by the label, the legendary Arif Mardin, who's produced classics for Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Chaka Khan and others, was brought in. His seamless work on "Come Away With Me" garnered Mardin the producer of the year Grammy in 2002. He also helmed "Feels Like Home."

Just as she was during the recording of her debut, Jones was very involved with her second album.

"I'm a control freak," she said. "If I'm putting my name on it, come on. Some people lay back and let the producer do everything. But I'm always there. We record everything live, and I'm there for everything — even the mixing. It's a band effort, really. But it's not like I'm at home while the tracks are being recorded. I'm there."

"Feels Like Home" is "just a reflection of me and the band. The recording is just a slice in time. That's all," Jones said. "I'm anxious to move on. ... I want to have fun and play good music. As long as I'm doing the best I can do, that's all that really matters."