She is the quiet revolution against strident rap and techno-pop, the anti-diva who can whisper in a crowd and be heard, the under-statement who made the music world headlines. Norah Jones stands out with her sultry, mellow voice amid artists who beat their songs into pulp rather than sing, who insist instead of merely suggesting. She invites you into her world gently with her smooth jazz-like renditions about promises kept and broken, of half-felt pain, of life's backwaters. She smoulders long after the song is done, true to her music. She is the counter-counter culture, a step beyond the rage and the angst.
That Norah Jones didn't mention her father in her many "Thank You" speeches on her biggest night—the Grammys—was noticed. But then Ravi Shankar was hardly around when she was forming, learning and maturing into a singer well beyond her 23 years. She grew up with her mother Sue Jones in Texas, listening to Billie Holiday, Willie Nelson and Aretha Franklin. A different tradition, a different life.
Jones' winning debut album, Come Away With Me, which on last count had sold six million worldwide, bagged eight Grammys. She took home five awards, including best new artist, best pop vocal album and best female singer. By the end of it, she looked overwhelmed and awed by the recognition as she struggled to articulate her emotions. She was up against the biggies—Bruce Springsteen, rap star Eminem, and new teenage goddess Avril Levigne. "I never ever thought that the music I made would become popular music, so this is amazing," she said at the glitzy ceremony in New York's Madison Square Gardens. "At a time in the world that's really weird, I feel blessed and really lucky." One of the gramophone statuettes was handed to her by the 'Queen of Soul', Aretha Franklin herself, and Jones said typically, "This is freakin' me out," as she tried to comprehend the gravity of the moment. She was standing next to her idol and a legend, but it was she who was being celebrated.
Keeping up with Jones that night was fun if only to see the loud, pre-packaged, computer-generated, vulgar music get sidelined by the industry's prestigious awards. It was an affirmation that there is a music god. Dressed in a simple, V-necked black dress that a friend had given, she sat next to her boyfriend Lee Alexander, clutching his arm and looking nervously about. Alexander plays the bass in her intimate group of musicians. Her half-sister Anoushka, who was nominated in the world music category, was there to lend support—the two are close and look like twins out on a spree. Balancing her five Grammys in her arms, Norah later partied with Anoushka, Lee and a few select friends and called her father on the phone. The family appears to be slowly coming together for her and she is grateful. The emotional speed bumps are getting worn out, the raw anger subsumed in the new folds of life. A musician friend of the Shankar family told Outlook: "She has been there for a number of Raviji's shows and has stayed at his San Diego residence many times. I know Raviji loves her dearly and is extremely proud of her. Long before she made it big, he always said she would do wonders because she had such a wonderful voice."
But Jones is honest about how she didn't really know her world-famous dad until she was 18 and well on her chosen path. She carried her own baggage, leaning for support on her mother Sue, a music promoter-turned-nurse. The two had settled in Grapevine, a historic town of 40,000 near Dallas in Texas, after Sue's nine-year-old relationship with Ravi Shankar ended. They never married but Norah saw her father for brief periods when Shankar was on concert tours. Somehow even those few visits fizzled out by the time Norah turned nine and she never saw her father for the next ten years.It is an aspect of life she doesn't want advertised—there's no mention of her father in her publicity material. Not because she doesn't want to acknowledge him, she says, but because, inevitably, she would be judged on a different scale, slotted in a separate block, measured against his legacy. And she has only just begun. She wants her music, not her unshared past with him, to be the focus of attention. Last year in Amsterdam, a promoter introduced her as Ravi Shankar's daughter before a show, and she was angry and hurt. She said it was the one thing she didn't want mentioned. We may want to claim her Indian connection, but she doesn't want to be claimed.
She burst out to an interviewer last year: "He has very little to do with who I am and the music I make, because I didn't grow up around him. I'm not going to say negative things about him. I am not going to say positive things about him. I have my own baggage to deal with and I am not going to make that public. That's the stand I am taking." Fair enough. She isn't rejecting her father. "I love my Dad. We have seen each other now and then and it's fine." She doesn't deny the past, but doesn't want to linger on it. During her concert tours in Britain and Australia, she got so fed up with questions about her father, she told her publicist: "No more press." And she even asked that questions be submitted in writing to protect both her parents who are "private people."
Somehow the fervent attempts not to talk about her past, to hide her pain, ends up creating more fuss around it. Although she denies any allegories by association in her songs, there is a lingering sense of melancholy and a hint of loss. Seven Years, a song she herself wrote, goes like this:
A little girl with nothing wrong/Is all alone/
Eyes wide open/Always hoping for the sun/
And she'll sing her song to anyone that comes along
Norah Jones' journey to stardom hasn't been easy. Growing up in Grapevine, she took up piano but hated practicing. She quit the North Texas State University, where she enrolled to study jazz piano, after two years to move to New York. There she did piano bar gigs for tips, sang with a hip-hop band and waited tables for a living. Even as she was packing up her bags to return home, Norah's singing caught the ear of an executive from Blue Note, a reputed jazz label. He asked her to do a demo tape and the rest is Come Away With Me.
Jazz purists carped that Norah was really a pop singer, and that Blue Note was selling out. But the label went ahead and even re-recorded the album because it didn't have the spare beauty that Norah wanted. They called in veteran producer Arif Mardin who allowed Norah's voice to dominate the piano and guitar. Eventually Norah's music settles somewhere between jazz, blues, folk and country and stays with you.
In real life, Jones is a gum-chewing, casual young American in jeans and T-shirts who curses and likes to have fun. She shops at discount stores and calls herself a "dork" who is scared by all the attention. As she said: "You don't get into jazz to be famous." Rolling Stone wrote that Jones drove a big Cadillac around the campus and loved shaving her Barbie dolls' hair. But her music speaks to a far older audience. Her album is what is called a 'creeper'—it rose slowly, from radio station to radio station to the top of the charts. It was released last February and mtv didn't play it until six months later. By Christmas, it was on top. Late night appearances on Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live pushed sales further. The cameras loved her racially-mixed looks, her gorgeous smile and a defiant refusal to tart up. Meanwhile, her anthem, Don't Know Why, climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard charts in January and stayed put for three weeks—an 11-month journey that ended with her big haul at the Grammys.
Li'l Girl With Nothing Wrong
