Norah Jones by Abril Masner

Norah Jones is an American singer, songwriter, actress and pianist. Her music is a kind of jazz, blues, pop, folk, country, vocal jazz, soul.

She was born on 30^th March in 1979 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. Her father's name is Ravi Shankar and the name of her mother is Sue Jones. After her parents separation in 1986, Jones spent her childhood with her mother in the Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas. She attended Colleyville Middle School and Grapevine High School before transferring to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. While in high school, Jones sang in the school choir, participated in band and played the alto saxophone. She began singing in church choirs and took piano lessons as a child. She still attends church. She considers herself spiritual and appreciates the rituals of her church but does not consider herself the religious type. She attended Interlochen Center for the Arts during the summers. 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). Jones attended the University of North Texas (UNT), where she majored in jazz piano and sang with the UNT Jazz Singers. During this time, she had a chance meeting with future collaborator Jesse Harris. She gave a ride to a band playing at the university whose members happened to be friends of Harris. He was on a cross-country road-trip with friend and future Little Willies member, Richard Julian, and stopped to see the band play. After meeting Jones, Harris started sending her lead sheets of his songs. In 1999, she left for New York City. Less than a year later, she started a band with Harris, which made her famous.

Norah moved to New York City and signed to Blue Note Records, a label owned by EMI Group. Bacchus told: "We let her find her own direction ... We knew that if she could develop her songwriting and we could find great songs, it would work.” Jones was first teamed up with experienced producer and engineer Jay Newland. Bacchus thought that Newland's experience in jazz, blues, rock, country and folk would give him a "feeling for her sound". Together they cut around nine demo tracks, of which six formed her debut Blue Note release, the sampler First Sessions, while the rest were set aside for her debut album. "First Sessions" was released in 2001. Released in February 2002 debut album, "Come Away with Me", was celebrated for its blending of mellow, acoustic pop with soul and jazz. Debuting at number 139, it reached number 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200. The single "Don't Know Why" was number 1 on the Top 40 Adult Recurrents in 2003 and number 30 in the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. Jones released her second album, “Feels Like Home”, on February in 2004. It was influenced by country music. It sold 4 million copies in the United States and ten million copies worldwide. She released her third album, “Not Too Late”, on January 30^th in 2007. The album was her first for which she wrote or co-wrote every song, and according to her, some of them are much darker than those on her previous albums. “Not Too Late” reached the number 1 position in twenty countries. Jones made her film debut in 2007 in the romance/drama film “My Blueberry Nights”, directed by Wong Kar Wai, co-starring Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. Jones as Elizabeth is a young woman who goes on a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love, and finds along the way a series of curious characters. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and United States in April 2008. It went on to gross more than $21,967,587 worldwide. Jones's fourth studio album, “The Fall”, debuted at number three in November 2009, selling 180,000 copies in its first week. After working with Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi on some of the tracks of their album, “Rome”, Jones teamed up with Danger Mouse for her fifth studio album “Little Broken Hearts”, which was released on May 1^st in  2012. American Songwriter Magazine has referred to “Little Broken Heart”s as “the most dramatic and rewarding departure she’s made in her career”.

She has 42 nominations awards and she won 28 awards. Norah won one Brit Awards, 10 Grammy Awards and 4 World Music Awards.

I like Norah Jones because her music is really inspiring. My favourites songs are "Turn me on", "Sunrise", "Don't know why", "Seven years" and "Cold, cold heart".