narrowcast: Deep Album Cuts Vol. 348: Norah Jones

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 348: Norah Jones

Norah Jones has a new album, Visions, out next week. And I wanted to make a playlist that really reflects how interesting and wide ranging her career has been beyond her multi-platinum success with Come Away With Me.

Norah Jones deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. As We Fall (with Laszlo)

2. Angels (with Wax Poetic and Ilhan Erashin)

3. Nightingale

4. New York City (with The Peter Malick Group)
5. The Long Way Home

6. Moon Song

7. I Gotta Get Drunk (with The Little Willies)

8. Be My Somebody

9. Carlo! (with El Madmo)

10. You've Ruined Me

11. Loretta (with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings)

12. Here We Go Again (with Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis)

13. Black (with Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi)

14. I Worship You (with The Little Willies)

15. After The Fall

16. Oh, So Many Years (with Billie Joe Armstrong)

17. Don't Know What It Means (with Puss n Boots)

18. Tragedy

19. Begin Again

20. You Don't Know (with Puss n Boots)

21. Say No More

22. You're Not Alone

Track 1 from Butterflies with Laszlo (1999)

Track 2 from Wax Poetic with Wax Poetic (2000)
Track 3 from Come Away With Me (2002)

Track 4 from New York City with The Peter Malick Group (2003)

Track 5 from Feels Like Home (2004)

Track 6 from Feels Like Home (Deluxe Edition) (2004)

Track 7 from The Little Willies with The Little Willies (2006)

Track 8 from Not Too Late (2007)

Track 9 from El Madmo with El Madmo (2008)

Track 10 from The Fall (2009)

Track 11 from ...Featuring Norah Jones (2010)

Track 12 from Here We Go Again: Celebrating The Genius Of Ray Charles with Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis (2011)

Track 13 from Rome with Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi (2011)

Track 14 from For The Good Times with The Little Willies (2012)

Track 15 from Little Broken Hearts (2012)

Track 16 from Foreverly with Billie Joe Armstrong (2013)

Track 17 from No Fools, No Fun with Puss n Boots (2014)

Track 18 from Day Breaks (2016)

Track 19 from Begin Again (2019)

Track 20 from Sister with Puss n Boots (2020)

Track 21 from Pick Me Up Off The Floor (2020)

Track 22 from I Dream of Christmas (2021)

Geethali Norah Jones Shankar is the daughter of a world famous Indian musician, Ravi Shankar, who helped popularize the sitar in western music, partly through his friendship with The Beatles. Norah Jones mostly grew up in Texas with her mother, though, where she developed a love for country music and Billie Holiday. I had no idea Jones had a famous father until well after she'd sold millions of albums -- I wonder if Blue Note Records even knew when they signed her.

In her early years in New York before becoming famous, Jones, recorded albums with the Texas band Laszlo, the trip hop group Wax Poetic, and blues guitarist Peter Malick. And after Come Away With Me became a mainstream phenomenon, she continued working with small bands and championing cult artists. The follow-up album Feels Like Home contained covers of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt songs (fun fact: Blue Note released a Norah Jones EP called Deep Cuts in 2009, so I felt obliged to include a song that was on it, "Moon Song").

Norah Jones has been invited to guest on records by a wide range of artists including Outkast, Foo Fighters, and Belle & Sebastian, and she collected those collaborations on the 2010 compilation ...Featuring Norah Jones. But even once she kind of had the opportunity to be a pop star, she kept pursuing these weird little passion projects, covering old country songs in bands with silly names like The Little Willies and Puss n Boots, harmonizing on Everly Brothers songs with Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, and wearing wacky costumes with the indie rock band El Madmo.

Jones's solo albums have never had the wild range of her side projects, but she's gotten gradually gotten more adventurous with them. The biggest departure was Broken Little Hearts, a cathartic breakup album produced by Danger Mouse. I've been kind of a Danger Mouse skeptic for a long time, very often when an artist has an album produced by Danger Mouse it's my least favorite record by them, but I really like Broken Little Hearts. Her last couple records Begin Again and Pick Me Up Off The Floor really impressed me, too, so I have high hopes for her new record, I think she's still reaching her full potential as a songwriter and as a vocalist, it's cool that having huge success at such a young age has freed her up to experiment so much.