As a part of the Twentieth-anniversary version of Come Away With Me, Norah Jones wrote prolonged liner notes detailing her earliest days as a musician and the recording of the long-lasting album. On this excerpt from these liner notes, Norah explains how she received linked to Blue Word Data and signed a deal for the album.
Within the spring of 2000, on my twenty first birthday, I used to be enjoying a 3-set jazz brunch gig with a trio at a spot on seventh Avenue South known as The Storage, when Shell White, who labored at EMI Publishing, confirmed up with a good friend of Lee [Alexander]’s. She appreciated what she heard and mentioned she needed to arrange a gathering for me with Bruce Lundvall, the pinnacle of Blue Word Data. I used to be excited however didn’t have my hopes too excessive. I hadn’t been in New York even a yr, so the dream of a document deal wasn’t on my radar but.
Purchase the Come Away With Me tremendous deluxe version.
A month later I discovered myself sitting in Bruce’s workplace enjoying him my demos: an outdated tune I’d recorded in my highschool band room known as “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” written in 1955; one other outdated customary recorded by a trumpet participant good friend in New York named Todd Horton, known as “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” written in 1931; and “World of Trouble” by Jesse [Harris], from our latest demos. It appeared to impress Bruce that I knew the outdated requirements. He listened quietly together with his eyes closed. I felt awkward sitting there. Once we received to the third tune, written by Jesse, he mentioned, “Oh this is different. So, what do you wanna be, a jazz singer or a pop singer?” Sitting there in Blue Word Data, essentially the most iconic jazz label, house of a few of my favourite recordings each outdated and trendy, I shortly mentioned, “Jazz singer!” However the fact was that I used to be nonetheless discovering my factor. Transferring away from Texas had made me lengthy for the roots I had not realized ran so deep. I listened to extra Willie Nelson that yr than I had since I used to be a child sitting in my grandma’s lounge in Oklahoma. Bruce mentioned he would come see me play a number of gigs, and we’d go from there. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
…
One night time, Bruce confirmed as much as considered one of my jazz reveals, at a candy membership known as Deanna’s. He was dressed as all the time in a 3-piece go well with and properly shined sneakers, straight out of the 1950’s. After the present, he supplied me a demo deal. This meant he’d give me six thousand {dollars} to do some recordings in an actual studio, giving Blue Word the choice afterward to present me an precise document deal in the event that they appreciated it.
…
We went to Sorcerer Sound on Mercer Road in Soho for 3 days, with a tremendous and type engineer named Jay Newland who had carried out considered one of my favourite albums by Etta James. It was a Billie Vacation tribute document, known as “Mystery Lady.” The band was the identical that had been enjoying at The Residing Room gigs: Jesse on guitar, Lee on bass, and Dan [Reiser] on drums. Adam Rogers and Tony Scherr performed guitar on a number of further songs. On one of many songs, we had a really particular tabla participant, Vikram Gosh, who occurred to be on the town enjoying with my father, Ravi Shankar, and sister, Anoushka Shankar. We tried to make all of the originals come to life and prepare the covers in a approach that may complement them. The consequence was the sound that ended up being the premise of Come Away With Me.
The very first tune we did in these periods was considered one of Jesse’s, known as “Don’t Know Why” that we hadn’t but performed reside. We received it on the primary attempt to it simply felt nice, a type of magical, simple takes. Once we walked again into the management room to pay attention, Jay was over the moon. It actually constructed my confidence for the remainder of the session and set the tone for what we had been going for. In spite of everything was mentioned and carried out, it was this model that ended up on the ultimate document, with just some harmonies and a doubled guitar added to it.
This assortment of 13 songs was introduced to Bruce, and he took the weekend to consider it. Lastly, he known as and mentioned “Ok, I love this. I gotta say, the song ‘Lonestar,’ that’s a country song, that’s not jazz. Blue Note is a jazz label. I’m not sure what this is, but I don’t care ‘cus it’s great. Let’s make a record!” So, they signed me as a Blue Word artist, and I got down to make my first document.
Purchase the Come Away With Me tremendous deluxe version.
