This paper documents the music and career of singer Norah Jones. A versatile artist most often classified as a jazz singer, Jones shot to fame in 2002 with a multi-Grammy winning CD and has maintained her success with her abilities as a composer, pianist, and singer. Her influences include a range of performers, from Billie Holiday to Etta James, and she continues to deepen and enrich her music with inspiration from varied sources, including bluegrass and heavy metal.
Jones was born on March 30, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York. Her full name at birth was Geethali Norah Jones Shankar, though she later simplified it with the blessing of both of her parents, legally retaining her two middle names. At the age of four, she and her mother, Sue Jones, moved to a suburb of Dallas, Texas. As a young girl, she sang in the church choir and started piano lessons when she was seven, briefly also playing saxophone in her junior high school band.
Jones attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, where she won several prestigious in-school awards for her singing and composing. After graduating, she attended the University of North Texas, majoring in jazz piano and singing "dark, jazzy rock" with a local band.[1] After two years, she moved to New York City, and by 2001, she had signed with Blue Note Records and had already worked with several groups of musicians.
Her first CD, Don't Know Why, was released in 2002, and she won five Grammy Awards that year-Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Pop Vocal Album. "Jones won every category in which she was nominated, tying Lauryn Hill (who did it at age 23 in 1999) and Alicia Keys (who did it at age 21 in 2002) for the most wins by a female artist in a single night."[2] Her followup CDs include Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), and The Fall (2009). In 2010, she released...