Craig and I met a few times and got along really well. “Since I loved the instrument choices (beautiful slide and acoustic guitars) and the production, I asked Bruce if I could meet with Craig Street, who produced it. “Cassandra Wilson’s New Moon Daughter had been a favorite album of mine and was a big inspiration for the kind of record I wanted to make,” Norah writes. Lundvall loved what he heard and signed Norah as a Blue Note artist, and she began to prepare to record her debut album. After all was said and done, it was this version that ended up on the final record, with only some harmonies and a doubled guitar added to it.” It really built my confidence for the rest of the session and set the tone for what we were going for. ![]() When we walked back into the control room to listen, Jay was over the moon. “We got it on the first try and it just felt great, one of those magical, easy takes. “The very first song we did in those sessions was one of Jesse’s, called ‘Don’t Know Why’ that we hadn’t yet played live,” Norah recalls in the new collection’s liner notes. Soon after, Lundvall signed Norah to a demo deal, and by the time she went into the recording studio she had decided to focus primarily on new originals written by Harris, Alexander, and herself. The last song on the CD was one of Harris’ that leaned more in a singer-songwriter direction with Harris on acoustic guitar and Lee Alexander on bass. A month later Norah was in Lundvall’s office playing him her 3-song demo CD, which included two jazz songs: “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” and a remarkably self-assured version of the standard “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” that Norah had recorded in her high school band room accompanying herself on piano. ![]() On Norah’s 21st birthday, EMI Publishing employee Shell White heard her performing at a jazz brunch and arranged a meeting with Blue Note President Bruce Lundvall. While playing jazz gigs at restaurants around town, Norah also fell in with a circle of singer-songwriters including Jesse Harris and Richard Julian who played often at the Living Room on the Lower East Side and inspired her to broaden the creative pathways she might one day take. Norah had moved from Texas to New York City in 1999 after spending two years as a jazz piano major at the University of North Texas. In February 2002, America was still emerging from the dark shadows of the Septemterrorist attacks, and Norah’s voice and music-pure, warm, and reassuring-struck a deep emotional chord with listeners the world over. The never-before-released alternate version of Norah’s song “Come Away With Me” from The Allaire Sessions is available to stream or download today. All formats are available for pre-order now. Standalone 1-LP and 1-CD versions of the remastered original album will also be released. The 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition was produced by Eli Wolf and will be released digitally and physically as a 4-LP vinyl set and a 3-CD set, both of which come in premium packaging with an extensive booklet featuring new liner notes by Norah and rare session photos. In addition to a remaster of the original album, which was produced by Arif Mardin, the Super Deluxe Edition also includes 22 previously unreleased tracks including the original demos that Norah submitted to Blue Note, the complete First Session demos she made after being signed, and the first version of the album that Norah made at Allaire Studios with producer Craig Street, most of which has never been heard before and offers a fascinating look at the album that might have been. On April 29, Blue Note will release Come Away With Me: 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition, a remarkable 44-track collection that captures the emergence of a singular talent and reveals for the first time the full story of the making of this now-classic album. The album steadily grew into a global phenomenon, reaching #1 in 20 countries, selling nearly 30 million copies, and sweeping the 2003 GRAMMY Awards with eight wins including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. ![]() But Come Away With Me, the debut album by Norah Jones, would go on to charm the world and introduce one of the greatest voices of our time. Released by the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records, it wasn’t a jazz album, nor did it resemble anything else on the pop landscape of 2002. ![]() 20 years ago, on February 26, 2002, a hard-to-categorize album by an unknown 22-year-old singer, songwriter, and pianist was released with modest expectations.
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