OTBKB Music: Norah Jones Moves Over to Guitar

As Yogi Berra once said, "you can observe a lot just by watching."  Over the past year, I saw a couple of Norah Jones (a Brooklyn resident once again) gigs with a mostly country covers band with Norah playing lead guitar.  What I've noticed over that time is how much Norah has progressed in her guitar playing.  And what kept running through my mind was "I'll bet that Norah's next album has her playing guitar and not piano."  Idle speculation, sure, but that's what I kept thinking.

Well, it's no longer idle speculation.  A recent press release confirms it: "Another noticeable change on Jones’ upcoming album is that she plays mostly guitar. 'I actually write more on guitar than I do on piano,' she says. 'It just felt more natural for me to play it on these songs.'   And, of course, Norah's new publicity photo (seen here on the left) has her holding a guitar, though not her usual candy apple red Fender Mustang.

Also interesting are Nora colaborators on this project: writers Jesse Harris (who wrote five of the songs on Come Away With Me), Ryan Adams and Okkervil River's Will Sheff, as well as producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Tom Waits and Modest Mouse), and musicians Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M.), James Gadson (Bill Withers), James Poyser (Erykah Badu, Al Green), Brooklyn's own Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello) and Smokey Hormel (Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer).

The album is scheduled to drop in about two months.  We'll see what Norah has up her sleeve then.

 --Eliot Wagner