8 Grammy Awards for Her Debut Album and Record-Breaking Success
At first glance, Norah’s success almost seems destined. She is the daughter of Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar, after all. But the more interesting story is what Norah did before she became famous.
Rather than simply being handed a career, she spent years developing her musicianship, including playing piano in restaurants and absorbing a huge repertoire of jazz standards.
That background became a big part of what made her sound so distinctive.
Come Away With Me
At just 23, Norah Jones released her debut album, with title track Come Away With Me, on the legendary Blue Note label.
Produced by Arif Mardin, the album combined Jazz, Folk, Country, Blues and Pop influences without sounding as though it was trying too hard to fit into any particular category.
That was important because some critics initially questioned whether the album was really “Jazz” enough for Blue Note. The audience didn’t seem particularly bothered.
Come Away With Me became a huge commercial and critical success, eventually selling more than 27 million copies. Norah also collected eight Grammy Awards for the album, an extraordinary achievement for a debut.
The title track became one of the songs most closely associated with her. And there is something wonderfully understated about it.
Rather than filling every space with information, Norah leaves room for the listener to imagine what is happening.
That’s very close to an idea I often come back to: you don’t always need to play more. Sometimes you need to leave more space.
Don’t Know Why
If Come Away With Me introduced the world to Norah’s sound, Don’t Know Why made her a superstar. The song won three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Norah didn’t write it, it was written by Jesse Harris, who also played guitar on the album. Harris had actually released the song several years earlier, in 1999, with his band the Ferdinandos.
He contributed four songs to Norah’s debut, but it was her interpretation of Don’t Know Why that made the song famous.
And that’s an important lesson for any musician. A great song isn’t necessarily finished when the songwriter puts the pen down. The performer can completely redefine it.
Norah’s voice, piano playing, phrasing and relaxed delivery turned Don’t Know Why into her song in the public imagination.
For a guitarist, this is also a fantastic tune to study. The chords aren’t the difficult part. The challenge is making them sound effortless.
Norah Jones and the Jazz Standard Repertoire
Before becoming famous, Norah spent time playing piano in restaurants and developing her style through jazz standards. Personally, I find that more interesting than the Ravi Shankar connection.
It’s one thing to have a famous father. It’s another thing to spend years sitting at a piano, playing tunes, learning how songs work and figuring out how to make them feel natural.
That is exactly how you build musicianship. Instead of learning one song and immediately moving on to the next, you start to notice the common language between tunes.
You hear familiar chord movements. You recognise melodic ideas. You begin to understand how singers phrase a line and how a pianist supports them.
That’s a much more useful skill than simply knowing a collection of isolated songs.
Angel Eyes
Angel Eyes is another great example of the kind of material that connects Norah’s world to the jazz-standard repertoire. It’s a very different experience from learning a modern pop song.
The melody has to breathe. The chords need to support the vocal without getting in the way. The guitarist has to understand the harmony rather than simply strumming through a sequence.
This is where learning standards becomes so useful. You start to develop an instinct for what a chord progression is doing instead of seeing every chord as an isolated shape.
Feels Like Home
Following the extraordinary success of Come Away With Me was never going to be easy. Norah’s second album, Feels Like Home, moved further towards Country and roots music while retaining the intimate piano-led character of her debut.
Arif Mardin returned as producer, and the album sold almost two million copies worldwide in its first week. It also gave us one of Norah’s most interesting collaborations.
Creepin’ In with Dolly Parton
Creepin’ In was written by Norah’s bassist, Lee Alexander, who contributed six songs to Feels Like Home. Norah shared the vocal with none other than Dolly Parton. Dolly was already a huge star, of course, but the pairing makes perfect musical sense.
Norah’s understated delivery sits beautifully alongside Dolly’s unmistakable country voice.
And it demonstrates another important part of being a working musician: you don’t always have to sound like yourself in isolation. You have to sound right alongside the other musicians.
The album also featured another legend. Levon Helm, drummer and vocalist of The Band, played on What Am I to You. Suddenly this supposedly quiet jazz-pop singer had Dolly Parton and Levon Helm appearing on the same record. Not bad for album number two.
Norah Jones and the Art of the Cover
One of the most interesting things about Norah’s catalogue is how naturally she moves between original material and older songs. That makes sense when you remember where she came from.
Before the fame, she was absorbing standards. That gives you a much deeper musical vocabulary. Songs such as Angel Eyes, Love Me Tender and Summertime are all useful examples of this wider repertoire.
Love Me Tender shows how a familiar song can become something completely different depending on the performer. Summertime takes you straight into one of the great pieces of the jazz and blues repertoire.
These are the kinds of songs that teach you much more than the individual arrangement. Learn enough of them and you start to understand a musical language.
The Ravi Shankar Connection
Norah’s relationship with Ravi Shankar inevitably became part of the story. It gave journalists an obvious headline and audiences another reason to be curious about her. But it would be easy to let that overshadow the actual music.
Norah had already spent years developing her own sound. She was a singer, pianist and interpreter with a deep appreciation of jazz and American roots music.
The result was an artist who could take elements from several traditions and make them sound completely natural together. That’s probably the most useful lesson here.
You don’t have to decide that you’re a jazz guitarist, a blues guitarist, a country guitarist or a pop guitarist. Learn the music that interests you. Eventually, those influences start to become part of your own playing.
Norah Jones and Building a Repertoire
Norah Jones is a particularly good artist to study if you’re interested in becoming a versatile working musician.
Her music connects several worlds:
- Jazz standards
- Country
- Folk
- Blues
- Pop
- Singer-songwriter material
- American roots music
And many of her best-known songs don’t require a huge amount of guitar to make them work. That’s actually a good thing. The challenge is understanding how little you need to play.
With Don’t Know Why, Come Away With Me, Angel Eyes or Summertime, you can learn the chords and then start concentrating on phrasing, dynamics, rhythm and space.
That’s where guitar starts becoming music rather than simply chord shapes. And if you’re building a repertoire for playing with singers, Norah’s catalogue is particularly useful.
You can take the same principle into a jazz gig, an acoustic duo, a wedding band or a singer-songwriter setting.
Learn the Tunes, Learn the Language
Norah Jones’ success might look like an overnight story: a 23-year-old releases a debut album and wins eight Grammys. But underneath that success was years of playing, listening and absorbing music. That’s the part worth copying.
Don’t just learn the latest hit. Learn Don’t Know Why. Learn Come Away With Me. Learn Angel Eyes. Learn Love Me Tender. Learn Summertime. Learn Creepin’ In.
Then go and find another standard. And another. The more tunes you put under your fingers, the more you begin to recognise the musical connections between them. That’s how you build a repertoire—and eventually, your own voice.
Norah Jones Tunes | Related Pages
Angel Eyes | Chords + TAB
You can learn Angel Eyes by Frank Sinatra using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, backing tracks, and an acoustic arrangement.
| Am Am/G Am/F# Am/F | Am/E Am/Eb |
Try to think that love’s not around…
Come Away With Me | Chords + TAB
You can learn Come Away With Me by Norah Jones using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| C | Am7 | C | Am7 |
Come away with me in the night…
Creepin’ In | Chords + TAB
Learn how to play Creepin’ In by Norah Jones using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and a Spytunes video guitar lesson.
| G | C (Csus2) | G | Dsus2 (D) |
There’s a big ol’ hole, that gone right through the sole, of this old shoe…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Creepin’ In (Norah Jones) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Don’t Know Why | Chords + TAB
You can learn Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Bbmaj7 Bb7 | Eb Ebm |
I waited ’til I saw the sun…
Love Me Tender | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Love Me Tender by Elvis using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| D D/A | E7 E7/B | A7 | D D/A |
Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Love Me Tender (Elvis) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Summertime | Chords + TAB
You can learn Summertime by Billie Holiday using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C | Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C |
Summertime and the living is easy…
Norah Jones on the web
