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Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar on March 30, 1979 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actress.
Jones's career was launched with her massively successful 2002 debut album Come Away with Me, a contemporary pop album with a sensual, plaintive soul/folk/country tinge, that sold over twenty million copies worldwide and received six Grammy Awards, with Jones winning "Best New Artist". Her second album, Feels like Home, was released in 2004, clocking more than a million sales in the first week of U.S. release. In 2007, she released her third album, Not Too Late, which debuted at number one on the world charts. She has become one of the most sucessful recording artists of the decade clocking up sales of more than 30 million records worldwide.
Born as Geethali Norah Jones Shankar in New York City, New York, but later changed her name officially to Norah Jones, at the age of 16. She is the daughter of the Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and Sue Jones, and is the half-sister of musician Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar's daughter from his second marriage. She spent her childhood with her mother, who moved to the Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas, when Jones was four. She has always liked the music of Bill Evans and Billie Holiday among others from the 'oldies' section and considers Willie Nelson her idol. She has been quoted as saying, "My mom had this eight-album Billie Holiday set, I picked out one disc that I liked and played that over and over again."
Jones began singing in church choirs, taking piano lessons, and even briefly trying out the alto saxophone. She attended Interlochen Arts Camp, Grapevine High School, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas. While at high school, she won the DownBeat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist (twice, in 1996 and 1997) and Best Original Composition (1996). She then attended the University of North Texas, where she majored in jazz piano. In 1999, two years into the program, Jones left for New York City. Since about that time she has been romantically involved with bassist Lee Alexander.
Jones was a lounge singer before becoming a recording artist.[1] Jones played with numerous artists and bands including Wax Poetic and the Peter Malick Group. Jones performed quite frequently with guitarist Charlie Hunter in 2001 and appeared on Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album in a duet with André 3000 in 2003. While Jones is best-known for her sultry-yet-powerful vocal style, often compared to that of Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, her abilities as a jazz pianist have likewise been celebrated. On January 19, 2003 Jones appeared as a guest on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR, performing jazz standards such as "September in the Rain" and "I Can't Get Started," and later that year she appeared again with McPartland at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, performing more standards such as "Lover Man" and "Walking My Baby Back Home". She has performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in both 2004 and 2005.
Throughout 2002 and 2003 Jones appeared on stages, globally, for her first tour with the Handsome Band, travelling throughout Asia, America, Europe and Oceania. The tour was received with numerous sell-out concerts and positive critical acclaim.
Shortly after Jones' third album, Not Too Late, was released, information about her forthcoming US and international tour was released. Pre-sales of tickets to the shows were made available to her fan club members, and many of the shows sold out well before the performance date.
While playing with the Handsome Band, Jones & co. are known to play several known hits from her albums, modified for stage performance with guitar solos and additional percussion. Additionally, shows may also feature several covers of country, jazz, blues, or folk songs, ranging from the ubiquitous to the obscure. Artists covered have included, among others, Willie Nelson, Randy Newman, and Tom Waits.
Come Away with Me was heavily nominated for the Grammy Awards of 2003. By receiving Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist honors all in 2003, she became only the second person to win the "Big Four" of the Grammies in one year (the other being Christopher Cross in 1979). Of the eight awards for Come Away with Me, Jones personally received five, with the other three attributed to the album itself. "Don't Know Why" was also performed on an episode of Sesame Street, in which Jones changed the lyrics to "Don't know why Y didn't come," and thereby introduced the letter Y to the young audience.
Jones received three awards at the Grammy Awards of 2005, including "Record of the Year" and "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" for her collaboration with Ray Charles on the song "Here We Go Again". She personally earned her eighth Grammy (and eleventh overall) for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" for her song "Sunrise". That year, Jones appeared on the self-titled record by Amos Lee.
Jones also collaborated with the Foo Fighters on their 2005 record In Your Honor, singing vocals with Dave Grohl on "Virginia Moon". The song was nominated for a "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" in 2006.
Norah Jones's cameo in the 2002 film Two Weeks Notice shows her briefly at the piano, singing for a charity benefit.
In the latter part of 2003, rumors emerged that veteran Indian filmmaker Dev Anand was planning to make the film Song of Life, inspired by Jones's troubled relationship with her father, Ravi Shankar. Both Jones and Shankar were enraged by the rumors; Jones commented, "[Anand] has no idea of our story, and he's not going to represent it in a truthful way, I'm sure. It's sad because it's personal stuff and nobody's business but ours."
In February 2006, Screen International reported that Jones would make her acting debut in a film directed by Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express). The film, My Blueberry Nights, was the opening film for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as one of the 22 films in competition.
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