Music: Come Away Again

To answer your question, yes, there have been a few occasions over the past two years when Norah Jones walked into Starbucks or the Body Shop and was serenaded by the sound of her own voice. “I’ve managed to avoid it to a point,” Jones says, “but it has happened. Once on a plane–you know how they play elevator music before you take off?–they played one of the songs. I haven’t had to deal with it too much, but my half-sister tells me all the time, ‘God, I’m so sick of it. I hear it everywhere.'”

Jones sold 8 million copies of Come Away with Me, her lovely, unpretentious 2002 debut. While that’s an incredible figure for an album by a previously unknown jazz pianist and singer, it does not really convey the extent of Jones’ ubiquity. ZZ Top once sold 8 million records, but you could avoid Eliminator by staying out of biker bars. Come Away with Me–by virtue of being inoffensive, authentic and really good–was inescapable. If Jones wasn’t laying down a mellow vibe for your latte, she was providing the sound track for your dinner party, the theme for your prom–or maybe the last dance at your biker bar. The diversity of her admirers wasn’t restricted to consumers either; she is almost certainly the only person ever asked to duet with Dolly Parton, OutKast and Elmo from Sesame Street. “It’s her voice, man,” says OutKast’s Andre 3000. “It’s just so nice. It doesn’t matter who you are, she kind of whispers, ‘I’m your friend.'”

Being a friend to all can be a terrible burden, and inevitably there were those who found Jones’ gentle omnipresence and memorable bio–her father is sitar legend Ravi Shankar, 83–a bit cloying. Skeptics were soon interpreting enthusiasm as hype and positing that Come Away with Me was merely a follow-up to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? sound track and Buena Vista Social Club–a pleasant little genre album that flattered its listeners’ sense of eclecticism. Never mind that her success was the rare intersection of ubiquity and quality; to “real” music fans, the fact that nobody could find a reason not to like her was reason enough not to like her. The day after she grabbed five Grammy awards, drive-time deejays started calling her “Snorah” and wondered why there was such a loud buzz over such soft music.

Secretly, Jones loved both the nickname (“My mom calls me Snorah all the time now”) and the burgeoning consensus that her popularity had peaked. “It had all gotten way too crazy,” says Jones. “I’m not saying I didn’t want any of it or that I think I’m undeserving, but I’m young. I’m still figuring out what I want.” Then: “Though I’m pretty sure I don’t want that craziness.”

Jones, 24, is musing about her future for a reason. She has a new album, Feels like Home, coming out on Feb. 10, and she would really like her voice not to be heard everywhere all the time. Luckily, she now has enough control to prevent such a thing from happening. In mid-2002, after Come Away with Me had shocked everyone by selling a million records almost entirely on word of mouth, Virgin, the bigger corporate sister of Jones’ tiny record label, Blue Note, presented her with an absurdly upbeat remix of her song Don’t Know Why, which they hoped to turn into a pulsing pop-radio hit. “It was a full-on drum machine thing,” says Jones. “Don’t know why … why … why … I didn’t come … come … come … Just awful. Obviously, I said, ‘Are you crazy? We’re not releasing that …’ I told them that I won’t cram my music down anyone’s throat and make something nasty out of it.” Come Away with Me sold 7 million more copies, but it sold them without the cheesy remix, and Jones effectively began to seize control of her career. “Norah makes every decision now,” says Blue Note president Bruce Lundvall. “From what she’s wearing to the television shows she’ll appear on to the songs she’ll sing. She’s very stubborn–in a good way. She knows what she wants.”

What Jones wanted for Feels like Home was a shot at the life she signed up for originally. Except for an adolescent flirtation with heavy metal–“I loved Motley Crue for a period of about two years,” she says–Jones grew up dreaming of being a jazz singer. (Her dedication was such that at the University of North Texas, she recalls taking just two classes outside the jazz-studies major–astronomy and sex ed–and, she says, “I may have dropped both of them.”) It wasn’t just jazz music that hooked her but also her imagined sense of the life and community that jazz musicians shared. Jones admits she may have romanticized this a bit–low pay, late nights and the freedom to experiment are available in the pop world too–but nevertheless she focused her power on turning her boho dream into reality.

First she got Lundvall to promise that he wouldn’t hype Feels like Home all over the world–“We aren’t going to go crazy with advertising and promotion,” he says–and agree that she could limit her number of publicity obligations. Then Jones, who lives on Manhattan’s West Side, insulated herself with the near constant presence of her band, which includes her boyfriend of four years, bassist Lee Alexander. “I really wanted to write more songs for this record”–she wrote just two on the first–“and I wanted to write songs with them,” says Jones. “Lee and I write very well together, but I write well with everybody else [in the band] too. We’re comfortable with each other. There’s no pressure.” Jones ended up writing or co-writing six of the album’s 13 songs. She also included covers of previously unreleased tracks given to her by professional admirers Tom Waits (The Long Way Home) and Townes Van Zandt (Be Here to Love Me). “Overall,” she says, “this album feels more mine somehow.”

It sounds more like her too. Despite the fact that Jones photographs like a goddess, in person she frequently wears large flowerpot hats, makes puns and has an adorably goofy laugh that she regularly hauls out at her own expense; she’s kind of an exuberant dork. Jones often complains that Come Away with Me was “too mellow” and “too cool” and that Feels like Home sounds like a correction. The tempo is noticeably jauntier, and the band is more confident, even roguish, as it wanders in and out of jazz, country and bluegrass riffs. Jones also sounds significantly less precious. She perfected an innocent sensuality on Come Away with Me, but on songs like What Am I to You? and the terrific In the Morning, Jones proves she can do sex and jealousy without compromising her aura of propriety. There are still moments when she comes off like a young fogy–a lyric like “Who cares what the night watchmen say” seems a little moldy for a 24-year-old–but what lingers aren’t the few odd phrases but the virtuosity of the instruments and, of course, the voice. Even on an average song–and there are a few here–Jones’ vocals are indelible. She never fails to choose simple over flamboyant, never holds a note too long. She may prove to be the most natural singer of her generation.

As for that first question–will Feels like Home soon be welcoming you into every restaurant and retail outlet in America?–well, there’s really no qualitative reason it shouldn’t. And yet it’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which Jones can repeat the cultural dominance her first album achieved. For one thing, she won’t be filling her days with phone interviews and photo shoots. For another, multiplatinum-sales phenomena like Come Away with Me have a logic all their own. Buying the first album by a beautiful, jazz-inflected underdog was an act of self-definition. Buying the second album by a charming, known commodity shows nothing more than an interest in pleasant songs expertly sung. Feels like Home is equally as good as its predecessor, yet for external reasons, it may seduce only half as many listeners. You get the sense that would suit Snorah just fine.