Norah Jones/Don Was

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Blue Note is one of the first and longest
standing institutions of jazz music, and it's always been one
of my favorite record labels. It started when my guitar
teacher passed along Herbie Hancocks made in Voyage and the
self titled album from Art Blaking and the Jazz Messengers,
the one featuring Monin. It was the music, of course

(00:38):
that made the most lasting impression, but there was the
artwork also. No label had cooler branding than Blue Note.
Later I'd find out that was thanks to people like
Reed Miles, who was the label's art director, and Francis Woolf,
who was a photographer that became an important executive at
the label shortly after its founding in nineteen thirty nine.
And in those eighty five years, the labels put out

(01:00):
albums by Robert glasper Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter,
Bobby McFerrin, Gregor Reporter, and so many more. To celebrate
eighty five years of music from this iconic label, I
thought I'd get together with Blue Notes's current president, Don
Was to speak with the labels past president in future
that's Ron Carter, Michelle and Digiocello. Charles Lloyd, Julian Lodge,

(01:24):
and today Nora Jones. Nora's been with Blue Note Records
her entire career, starting with her Juggernaut two thousand and
two debut Come Away with Me, to her latest album,
Visions that was put out just this year. Visions was
created with New York's Leon Michelle's of El Michelle's Affair,
and there are two distinctive sounds, Nora and Leon's blend beautifully.

(01:47):
Nora was the first interview Don and I did in
this series. It came together quickly and Hollywood Studio Sunset
Sound was kind enough to accommodate us at the last minute,
not only for a chat with Nora, but also a performance.
And I should tell you before we begin that you
can binge the entire Blue Note Anniversary series early in
ad free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus on the Broken
Record Show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot

(02:10):
fm Slash plus. This is Broken Record Liner Notes for
the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Don Was and
myself in conversation with Norah Jones. To see the full
video version of this episode, go to YouTube dot com
slash Broken Record Podcast Well I'm excited. This is the

(02:30):
eighty fifth anniversary of Blue Note.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, the year twenty twenty four. We have Nora Jones here.
We're going to celebrate the anniversary of Blue Note with
the series of guests, our first being Nora Jones who's
releasing her ninth album with Blue Note. The newest album
is Visions. And also to celebrate, we have Don was
president of Blue Note Records, and it's going to be

(02:53):
a guest with us on these episodes.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Lovely to be here. Thank you man.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
So excited to have the both of you here.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thanks and.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Love the new album. I want to get to that,
but first I want to ask Don your first recollections
of Norah Jones as an artist.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Sandra Bullock turned me on to you.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
In person or in the movie two weeks notice.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I was going to work on that movie. Oh really,
and she said, we want to have this artist. You
got to hear this record, and it was I think
before the album came out, but she had an advanced
copy and she sent it to me. I said, yeah,
it's incredible. And then I ended up not working on
the movie. But yeah, but you.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Were in it.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I was in it.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
I was in a scene that Donald Trump was in also,
which is so weird going back.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah it was, Yeah, it was cool though. She was
really sweet. She loved me so sweet.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, so she had how did she become aware of
I don't know I had.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
An advance copy of the record, I didn't, And she
was looking for music to put in her movie. I
can't even remember the name of the movie.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Two weeks notice Grant.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, that's funny. I didn't know she had an advanced happy.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I think we shot it somewhere in November, and the
album had come out in February, and it was kind
of a slow, steady rise that year.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, it's that kind of is the perfect illustration of
how quickly you kind of went from somebody playing music
for fun to getting signed to recording an album and
the album just sort of becoming a phenomenon. The fact
that not early in your recording career you were and

(04:41):
a Sandra Bullet. I mean, that was a huge movie
at the time.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
You know, it's a big movie.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, I want to get to that, but I'd kind
of like to start at the beginning. Okay, I got
this this image of grape fun Texas is then like
the City and Last Picture Show like Tumbleweed. Yeah, it's
not right suburb of Dallas.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
It's a suburb of Dallas. When I was little was
very small though. There was a McDonald's and nothing else.
But it is now like one of the biggest I mean,
it's just I think strip malls and chain restaurants, and
it's got one of the biggest malls in Texas. It's
quite the suburb.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, so it didn't have like a small town mentality
to it.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
Maybe it did.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
I think it was kind of a small town when
I was little.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
I really was only there until I was maybe I
guess I was there till ninth grade. I kind of
bounced around, though, and I bounced around schools a lot.
And we moved to Alaska for six months. Then we
came back and I went to the Junior High and
then I went to Colleyville, which is the neighboring town,
and then you know what I mean, I was kind
of all.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Over because it seems a little incongruous that the world's
most successful jazz singer comes comes out of great time,
but maybe not.

Speaker 5 (06:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I was in marching band in ninth grade and they
had a I had a saxophone teacher, John Rosina, and
I had quit piano at that time because I didn't
want to practice anymore, and he turned me onto this
piano teacher named Julie Bank who lived in the area,
who was a jazz pianist because Dallas, you know, and Denton,

(06:30):
Texas is a big jazz college. So that kind of
got me going on on the jazz tip. But I
grew up singing in church choir at Grapevine Methodist Church.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, did you listen? Like, I got a son who's
he's a year or two older than you, but I
remember what he was listening to, and you know, like
Paul Abduel and Millie Vanilli and Bobby Brown.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
You were absolutely I loved Paul Abdul that album.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
That one album was just it was huge when straight Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah, it's actually it was a great record.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
It was a great record. The songs are really good.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
I think I covered one on my during COVID because
I was just like in a normal Yeah, I was
into all that stuff growing up. I listened to case
case them every weekend.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Do you remember the first record you bought?

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yeah, it was digital underground. Wow, that's the Humpty Dances.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
The radio. And then my first concert was EMC Hammer.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Wow. Yeah, were you a shy kid?

Speaker 4 (07:35):
I was kind of shy. I wasn't that shy until
seventh grade. I think in sixth grade, I was like
completely unaware of how I was perceived, and I was
completely open and you know that time in your life
where you don't care what people think.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
And then I remember.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
There were some girls at school who were kind of mean,
and I think I realized. For the end of the year,
I just got really self aware and self conscious and
I kind of went inside.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
You know, did you kounter of racism.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Towards me? Not that I was aware of. I never
was aware.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, I'm mixed as well. I'm black and white. My
mom's white, my dad's black, and I feel like there
was a time when it was less common to be mixed.
So that was kind of like a weird experience not
knowing many other people who were of two cultures. Did
you feel of two cultures or did you feel well?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I felt a lot of.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
I mean, I didn't see a ton of my dad.
I grew up seeing my dad, but because I wasn't
in his culture, so much. I didn't feel very of
two cultures, but I did feel a little different, and
people never really knew what I was, and they would
always ask, but they always assumed I was Mexican. Especially Yeah,

(09:02):
and then like they would speak Spanish to me, and
then I wouldn't speak Spanish because I didn't know Spanish,
and then.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
I felt bad, you know, like I'm so are you like?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
But then yeah, and then in high school some people
thought I was half black and they just didn't know
what to make of me. But I never encountered any
negativity from it. Just nosiness, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, what are you?

Speaker 4 (09:26):
That question was always funny, but I never got offended
at it.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
So you fit in. I have this industry of being
like like someone who was thirty years late for being
a beatnik.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Well, I mean, I think as a kid, I was
just sort of like other kids, just weird.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know, all kids are kind of weird, I think.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
And then in junior I when kids were starting to
get into football, especially in Texas, at cheerleading, I wanted
to be a cheerleader and my mom wouldn't let me
because it was.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Too expensive, I think. And then.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
And then I got into band. So then I was
with my people, the band nerds, you know. So I
felt like you always kind of find your thing. And
then in high school, I went to Performing Arts High
School in Dallas, which was completely all all people of
artistic you know interests, and.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's like I didn't like Roy Hargrove go to school
and Erica Badri. Yeah. So it's a great school, great school,
and there was an influence. There was an emphasis put
on jazz.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Yeah, I think I was a jazz piano major. But
I still had to take a classical piano class, which
I was horrible at, and I still had to take
I took Actually it was kind of cool because they
had a synthesis ensemble. Wow, And so I took a
synthesis class with my heroes, some guys in my class.

(10:56):
They were older and they really, I know, they were
just really insanely amazing musicians.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
So that was really fun.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
We had like a d X seven and a Moog
and we all the teacher encouraged us to al write
songs and we actually put out.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
A cassette tape.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
It was pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (11:14):
I must somewhere my song I hated on it. I
hated it so much because it had like synth strings
on it, which wasn't really what I wanted.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
But that can be a rough sound.

Speaker 6 (11:26):
That's not what.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
I was going for, but that's what ended up happening,
and it was fine, but it was just funny.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know, where did the where did the jazz come in?

Speaker 4 (11:38):
After I quit piano because I didn't want to practice,
My mom said I had to take for five years
and then I could quit it. So on five years
on the dot, I quit, well, yeah, sixth grade, and
then she took me to a big band concert at
University of North Texas, which is funny.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's how I got into jazz.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
But I liked it, and so she found a saxophone
teacher and that's when I joined the band, and then
he found me the jazz piano teacher.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, I never made my kids practice. They're all three
of my sons are musicians, and I start making him
practice was like the worst thing, supposed to be the
thing from work too. Yeah, but you got the background
so when you wanted to, when you finally felt compelled
to play, you didn't have to start from scratch.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
She was right, I had the foundation.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
It was good.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
So then you went to North Texas and then I ended.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Up going to North Texas. Yeah, for two years.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
From that it was really a jazz program.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
It was very jazz.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
And in high school I was in the vocal ensemble too,
even though piano was my major.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
And then college same thing. I started out.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Just doing piano and then I joined the vocal ensemble too,
like the jazz singers, and so I sang a little bit,
but it wasn't my main focus for school.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
You know. The only time I ever saw Willie Nelson
get mad was in a session that we did, and
he came back in the room to listen to a playback,
and the engineer had his guitar down, and he just
couldn't understand why anyone would separate his singing from his guitar,

(13:20):
why they wouldn't be at an equal level, because to him,
it was one form, one solitary expression was coming from
his vocal chords or his.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Fingers, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Was there a point where the two became inextricable to
you where you weren't like where it's just one expression.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I mean, I don't think I realized it till the
last ten years, but.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
I think in college because I sang and I played,
but I didn't really do it together so much. I
mean I tried, but I had a couple of demos
where I did. But I got a gig at a
restaurant in Dallas called Popolo's. It was an Italian restaurant,
and somehow I got a gig playing every Friday and
Saturday night and if I could sing too, because that

(14:10):
wasn't really the gig, and they said sure, but not
like every song, and so that was my paid practice
and that's how they got sort of like the coordination factor.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah. I don't know if people understand what a great
pianist do. I hear it in your voicings are incredibly sophisticated.
So you clearly study theory and you understand your scales
and your modes and all that. And I just think
you're such a great singer that it might get overlooked,
but you're an incredible pianist.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Thanks, don I mean, were you.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
In bands as just a keyboard player?

Speaker 2 (14:48):
No, I wasn't.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
I was still you know, as far as the piano
players in college and high school, I mean everyone else
could play circles around me. I never had a lot
of chops. I still don't. I can't play very fast,
but yeah, I have my own thing that has developed
over the years. But I think just over the last

(15:12):
ten years, even I've played so much more piano live,
sort of stripping my band back into trio form at
some point.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
That I've just I just have gotten.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
A lot better in the last ten years, and it's
been really fun to play.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
I feel more connected to it than I did even
fifteen years ago.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
You know, is it hard now when you have to
when you're in a situation where you have an accompanist.
Does that ever come up where you just have to
stand and sing?

Speaker 4 (15:43):
I'm not great at it. I'm much better if I
accompany myself. Yeah, And like if there's a situation where
there's a house band or a tribute show, I always
try to play, you know, because I feel like I
can do my thing a little easier. But it depends
on the situation, of course. Yeah, sometimes it's fun to
have an accompanist if it's the right person.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
But so there is a bit of a willy thing though.
It does feel like these are these I do these
things together, not so much apart.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
I do think that where I can do my thing,
which is more special. It's when they're together.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah, absolutely gives you something to bounce off of.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
Also, I'm really not great at standing and singing because
I don't know what to do with my hands. So
even in college, I was in a couple of bands
where I just sang, and I think it was a
good match musically, but I always just they're looking really awkward.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
That's the whole other thing, especially if you're used to it.
But I think it's rhythmically too. He I was just
I was talking to Lucinda Williams who's having trouble guitar,
and she just what she's got no rhythmic point of reference.
Bob Villains another person like that. His guitar playing was
so essential to the way he sang that when he

(16:58):
stopped being the primary source of accompaniment, his singing changed,
and he's been looking for a band that would play
the he plays.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
But it's not that it's that he's doing the thing
and filling the space with part of him. Yeah, probably
it's more that that you're not filling the space. And Yeah,
I feel like when I record, I'm always getting a
better vocal and piano take. If I am doing it
at the same time live. If I overdubbed the piano

(17:31):
or the vocal, it can be cool if it's the
first or second take. But the more I the more
takes I do, I get really busy, or like I
overthink or I over sing or I overplay, and it's
just not the same.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
All right. So when you when you finally go to
New York City, you dropped out of college, right, Yeah,
I did too. It's a good move.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Well, I didn't want to.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
I didn't want to teach, so I didn't know that
I needed a music degree. And I also failed my
classical piano jury. That's I'm not proud of that, but
I am not.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Afraid to admit it.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
So I was also faced with like having to do
six semesters of classical piano, and I had already failed
the first one, which was pretty sad.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
So there was no alternatives.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
And it's really just because I didn't practice. It's not
because I couldn't do it. It was because I didn't practice.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Were you busy doing other things besides practicing?

Speaker 4 (18:23):
I mean I was practicing for other classes, I was
playing in two bands, I was doing gigs, so I
wasn't practicing my classical piano, got it or my arpeggios.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
It was back to the original. Yeah, quandary almost of
your piano plan, being forced to do a site reading
and classical and when you got in your own thing,
fell back in love. But now you're kind of going
back to this is not the stuff I like.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, I didn't want to do that.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
That's the same for me. I went to the University
of Michigan, but this is in nineteen seventy and if
you wanted to be in the music program, you were
in the orchestra, or you weren't in the music program.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
It was a recording lab or electronic music lab or
no jazz pro and nothing like that. Yeah, so I
knew what I wanted to do. So when you got
to New York, were you did you? Were you thinking
that you'd be someone like Shirley Horn, you know, a
jazz singer.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
I didn't really know, but at that point I was
still way into jazz. And so I got a gig
at an Italian restaurant, another Italian restaurant, but it paid
way less than the Texas one, Did I tell you that?
And I was just I was going to Smalls every
night and watching people play and just so in love

(19:43):
with going to hear music every night. I mean, I
went out and I heard music every night of the week.
And I would hear Brazilian bands, I would hear jazz
I would go to you.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Know, there were so many different jazz scenes too. In
New York.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
There was there was the small scene, and then there
was the tonic scene, which was kind of avant garde,
and I knew some people in that scene, and I
knew some people in that scene.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So there was all these different scenes and talk as
in it was a club, a club called.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yeah Yeah. And then I had friends who were songwriters
and I would go see them play at the living room, right,
And that was totally different for me because I had
never thought about songwriting since my synthesizer class song that I.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
I think I wrote two songs for that class, which
I still think is so cool that he encouraged us
to write songs. But I think I was embarrassed by
them because you know, it was an assignment, and so
we had to show them and we had to and
we recorded them and they didn't come out or I
liked it, but I didn't like the way I sound it.

(20:54):
You know how it is when you hear yourself for
the first time. It takes a long time to do
it in a way that you like it. And so
I was a little put off by myself, and so
I didn't write after that at all.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Put you off to songwriting like that, Yeah, I was.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Like, oh, I'm not going to I didn't even think
of it as something that I should do. It was
weird now thinking back that I didn't even like occur
to me that I could get better at it or
do it differently.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
And so then when I was seeing all my friends
at the living room, I was I was getting inspired,
and I didn't have a piano yet because I you know,
I lived in a rental and I didn't have a
keyboard or anything. And so my mom sent me this
old guitar that I had in Texas that I knew
two chords on, and I played like five chords. I
learned five chords and I wrote come Away with Me

(21:44):
one night, and then I started writing songs that's good. Yeah,
And oh, I think because the guitar, I could play
really simple chords on piano. I knew all these cool chords,
but I didn't know how a song fit in, and
they always sounded like a standard, and then it sounded not.

(22:05):
I don't know the piano. I couldn't make sound how
I wanted to write songs with at the time, I
couldn't put that together yet.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Just you know, and I know that you don't think
about genre. I don't know any musician who sits and thinks, well,
I think I'll phrase this next line like a jazz line,
and then I'll throw in it. It doesn't work that
way you but you was there a disparity between what
you were hearing at Smalls and what you were hearing

(22:35):
at the living room.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
It was just different. I mean, the people playing at
Smalls were incredible musicians, and then the people playing at
the living Room were playing really simple chords and writing
really great songs.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
And so.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
I did all these gigs, but I wasn't playing in
clubs yet because I wasn't really there yet. I did
a lot of restaurant gigs where nobody listened. And then
my friend Jesse Harris, who's the songwriter, asked if I
would do some demos for him. He had a Sony
publishing deal, and so I sang a few of his
songs for his demos and he loved the way I

(23:14):
sang them, and he said, let's do a gig at
the living room.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Why not? It's just I mean, you don't get paid.
It's not like that hard to get it. And he
was already playing there.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
So I said, all right, sure, maybe we'll do come
Away with Me this song I wrote, you know, And
so we did his songs, we did like one or
two of mine, and my bass player Lee Alexander started
writing songs. We did a few of his, and that
was sort of the beginning of the first album. And
it was a really big moment because it was the
first time I'd played in a place like that. And

(23:46):
they passed a tip jar around and you couldn't you
could hear a pin drop. Nobody was talking, everybody was listening,
and I hadn't experienced that yet. Really yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Did it freak you out then? I mean, in the moment,
it was nice.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
I mean I was nervous, but it was nice.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
You know, Wow, imagine that people listening.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
So is that around the same time that the woman
from me and my publishing came I forgot.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Her name, Shelle White.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, and she how did she end up coming to
hear you play?

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Her husband?

Speaker 4 (24:26):
My bass player played with her husband, and I also
did had done a gig or I ended up doing
a gig with him, and so they were friends.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
He was a musician, Jace Hopkins.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
So they came. It was my twenty first birthday. We're
playing at the garage on Seventh Avenue. We're playing jazz
brunch trio and they came to hear us, and she's like, Hey,
you know, I just was at a company picnic and
I met Bruce Lenvall, the head of Blunot Records.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I'm going to set up a meeting. How about that?
I was like, O, guy, whatever, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Really did you aspire to get a record too?

Speaker 4 (25:05):
I was aspiring to pay my rent and to get
a at a non brunch venue. My sites, we're not
very far ahead of my next week. Yeah, get out
of restaurants and into a club, like I was so
not even there yet.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
But you were aware of the legacy of Blue Note Records.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I knew Blueot Records, so I was not going to
say no, did.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
You own some blue Oot Records?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (25:31):
What were your favorites.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
I always like that something else canniball outly record. I mean,
I think I didn't even know which ones were Blue Oat,
but I know I owned a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, we'll be back with more from Don was and
myself in conversation with Norah Jones, We're back with more
from Norah Jones.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
So there you are. You're in a meeting with the
head of Blue Note, And how did that go?

Speaker 7 (26:06):
Well?

Speaker 4 (26:06):
I didn't know if I was going to have to
play like that's not really that feels so embarrassing to
me to go into an office and audition for somebody
like that, So I didn't know. I brought in a demo.
I had a three song demo that I brought around
to restaurants to get gigs. And on the demo I
put a song from Maybe College that I had recorded

(26:28):
a standard, and then a song I had recorded in
New York with a friend, a standard with basin trumpet
on it. And then I threw one of the Jesse
Harris songs from the demos we made on there right,
and so Bruce listened and he liked it. And then
after the Jesse song came out here goes, well, what
do you want to be a jazz singer a pop singer?
I was like, jazz singer, I'm here in Bluna.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, but I also like, I don't I don't think
I was thinking about that.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Well, I don't think there's that big a difference. I've
listened to all three of those. Yeah, and with the
Jesse songs got like a is it a dobro?

Speaker 4 (27:09):
The Jesse song we had played him was it was
just sort of six eight like country song.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, what instrument was there's something kind of picking
on it?

Speaker 4 (27:17):
There was no This was just it's called World of Trouble.
It was piano and guitar, yeah, and bass.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
So there was some textural differences, but you sang the
way you approached the song and the voice he used.
It wasn't like you sang, you know, Jesse song with
like a twang. I thought you're incredibly consistent.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know when I made the disc.
I mean I grew up mimicking my favorite singers. That's
how you learn, right, who were there? I mean I
tried say, I tried to mimic or Ethan all her
background singing. You know, I was always doing the harmonies
to Ain't no Way, but I mean Billie Holliday was

(28:02):
a big one. I actually got a part as Billie Holiday.
In the high school. They did a black history program
every year and somehow I got to play Billie Holiday,
which is crazy.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
It was just a program with.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
Lots of different stuff and I was like, I went
into that was weird because I had to audition it.
We auditioned in front of the whole group of students.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
It was like.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
And I sang I think I sang like fight and
mellow or something. But the actual song for the performance
was Strange Fruit, which was also crazy, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
And it's heavy for for for high school and to
not only have to sing it in front of people
and find them heavy.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Very heavy. And I'm also not black, so.

Speaker 8 (28:47):
You know, people people thought you were, but I think
I think maybe they did, and I know I did
definitely did not tell them I was, but I think
maybe there was a little bit of a mystery surrounding
my background.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
I'm not really sure. I'm actually not sure about that.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Did you try it? Did you try to sing it
like Billy or.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yes, Yeah, I definitely tried to out like Billy that
was an amazing experience.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
The director Edra James. She was incredible. She really taught
me a.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
Lot about embodying something, you know, because I wasn't into theater.
I wasn't in the theater group, but she was like
the theater director.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
And she.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
I don't know, the way she told me to do
it was really it was very spiritual. She was talking
about Billy in her life and everything, which, of course,
you know, I didn't know that much about yet.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
I just knew I loved her her singing. Yeah, so
Aretha Billy, Billy God, Judy Garland. You know.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
The other day that Judy Garland is one of the
great I mean, at least twenty greatest singers ever.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh you had to convince that.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I guess
people think maybe of her as hokey, but I don't know.
I mean, when you think about the standards that have
come from her, the definitive versions of.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Certain phrasing, brilliant, man. Yeah, it's all for real.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yeah, an incredible. I love the Cardigi Hall Live album.
It's really hard, a lot of heart. Yeah, And as
I got older, I think I realized that that's all
that matters really. And I remember in college once I
was singing a stand. I was playing a demo for
a friend of mine and he and it was a

(30:37):
jazz standard and he's like, gosh, you really hear your
Texas toang no matter what you do. And I was like, really,
I didn't know that, and he's like, yes, it really cool.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
And I was like, that's cool, okay.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
And I think that was one of those moments where
I sort of was like, Okay, I can kind of
be myself and I don't have to imitate Ella, you know,
or Seravon.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
I loved Saravon. I was obsessed with Serevon.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
But I mean, yeah, I mean some of my favorite
voices are imperfect or weird or whatever they are, but
they embody them themselves, you know, they're their own thing.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
So then then you get the chance to make a record.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, And I.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Thought, like, call on Craig Street. There's a smart move.

Speaker 9 (31:22):
Well.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
I was obsessed with New Moon Daughter, the Cassandra Wilson album.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Is that the one where she does I'm So Lonesome?

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, I mean I love that album.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
That tied it all together.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Well, I loved that album so much. It was so
different from anything else I listened to. And I remember
being in high school, and I mean, that album was
really emotional for me because my aunt was dying of
cancer and I was listening to it NonStop in Florida
with my aunt. So it was very emotional for me
for that reason. But also it was the first time

(31:54):
I had an album of a singer where there's just guitar.
It's all acoustic guitars on that album. There's no keys
at all, and it just had such a different sound,
you know, it was earthy and kind of it had
like some twang on it, and she's Southern, so she

(32:14):
has a little twang and she's incredible, And yeah, I
was cool.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
It was great records, and so you called Craig and
started to make it.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
I asked Bruce if I could use Craig, and He's like, yeah, okay,
I'll call Craig.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
You discovered that it was probably a more function of
mixing really than it's like you did achieve the thing
you went into work with Craig for.

Speaker 5 (32:36):
We did.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
I mean, we made a twenty one We recorded twenty
one songs in a week and mixed it immediately, and
maybe it wasn't the smartest way to do it with.
I think space is always the place when you're recording.
And then we turned the record in and it got rejected,
and I was kind of scared and sad, but also

(32:58):
a little relieved because I didn't love I didn't feel
like it came out exactly like it could have. But yeah,
in hindsight, I think the mix says we're not right.
And again I think Space would have been the place,
and we would have used what was great, and we
would have either redone or used some demos from something else,

(33:19):
and then that ended up being what happened. We used
three of the amazing takes from that that session on
the record.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Don't know why. It's the first take right from your demos, right.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Don't know why was the first take of the demos
we made because Blue Note gave me some money to
make demos before they decided if they wanted to sign me.
And then whenever Bruce heard the demos and he liked them,
he called me and he was like, all right, this
isn't jazz, this is country, some of it even, but
I don't care.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Let's do it. Let's make a record. That's kind of
how he was.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Funny review.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
It's just the greatest, wasn't he his enthusiasm.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, Bruce was great.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, Bruce was so great. But he was also so
into jazz. I mean, later on, after many, many years,
I made records that I made The Fall, and then
I made Little Broken Hearts with the injer Mass and
we went to lunch one day and he's like, well,
I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't like those
records when you turn them in. They're not really my thing.

(34:21):
But I think now I like them, and I get it.
Now I get it, and I thought that was cool.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
He never kissed my butt.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
He never told me he liked him, so I never
really thought about him not saying anything, but like it
was fine.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I don't think you had a shift in sensibilities or
a shift in your style of delivering the songs. You
were always you, but the textures kind of changed dramatically,
you know, which I think is a cool thing. That's
what Miles did. You know, if you listen to Miles,

(34:59):
whether it's with an electric band or whether it's I'm
kind of Blue or in the Herbie Wayne Tony Ron band.
He always sounded like Miles. He was always Miles, and yeah,
he just kept it interesting for himself by changing the textures.
After the success of Have Come Away with Me? Were

(35:20):
you trying to avoid getting pigeonholed into piano trio?

Speaker 4 (35:27):
I was just excited to keep finding stuff and I
was really getting into songwriting. I only wrote two or
three songs on Come Away with Me, and the rest
were Jesse songs, Lee songs and a few covers, and
I loved doing them. But I was excited to write,
and I was getting into like bluegrass that year, and

(35:48):
so the second album was a little more country, but
everyone in the band wrote for it, and so we
did everyone in the band's songs, and I wrote a
little more, but we had the same engineer and same
producer of course, a Reef Martin.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Let's talk.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, I got to talk about is you.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Know, certainly one of my great heroes and a guy
who I aspired to I want to emulate. I don't
feel I ever hit it, but I try.

Speaker 9 (36:18):
No.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
I mean, I think you have the same spirit a
Reef did, which is just very nice. He embodied like
sweetness and goodness and you have that absolutely.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
That's very kind. Ye what bo was a like making
records for him?

Speaker 4 (36:33):
It ended up being so fun And I never thought
I would have this old man as a friend. You know,
the same thing with Bruce. I always thought that was
so funny. I could go to lunch with a Reef
or Bruce and we could drink Martini's for hours and just.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Talk about relationships like I would talk about my boyfriend,
you know.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
What I mean, Like they were like my my friends.
And I always thought that was funny.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
How did a reef like join the project?

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Actually, a Reef had just started either started or revamped
I'm not sure. Maybe you know Manhattan Records, which was
a sort of sister labeled to Blue Note that Bruce oversaw,
which was either classical or musical theater kind of adult contemporary.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, that's adult contemporary.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah, it would have revaed because I think I started
in the eighties. Maybe it started, probably was revamped.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
That's what it was.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
He left Atlantic and went to yeah do that.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
So whenever the Craig Street version of the record got
sort of rejected, Bruce said that he wanted me to
go back in with a Reef Martin, and I was
a little confused. I was like, well, you like the
demos we did on our own, should we just do that?
And of course I respected everything where Reef had done,

(37:52):
but I was starting to get a little protective at
this point and like stubborn, and I didn't know if
he still you know, like I didn't know if it
was going to be strings and stuff I didn't want.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
On there, you know, or or what.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
So I was a little hesitant, to be honest, even
though he was a legend and I'm obsessed with all
of the stuff he did with Donnie Hathaway and Retha.
But then Bruce said, why don't we set up a meeting.
We'll go into a rehearsal space. We went to this
rehearsal space.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
It was so silly and like he came in and
he's this sweet old man and he sits down and
I play or something. I don't know. It was weird.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
And then Bruce said, well, you guys have a four
days book.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
In the studio.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
He'll just come the first day and if it goes well,
then he can come the rest of the days. I
don't know if he ever told a reeffat but that's
what was my understanding. And so because it was still
just my band, he didn't hire the band. It was
still in my band, and I hired the band and
the engineer, and so that's what happened. He came in
for the first day. He was super sweet, he had

(39:04):
great like years, and he didn't try to impose anything
on it, I think, which was my main thing. But
he definitely helped guide us into the right directions every time,
and all right, he can stay. It was like, kind
of funny, but what would.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
He make suggestions about.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Actually, When I did the Nearness of You, which is
the old Hogey Carmichael ned Washington song and I play
it solo, there's a part on it.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
The nearness of You, the nearness of You.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
Or whatever the melody is, I was kind of like,
I think I had sung that song for a long
time and I was kind of phrasing it a little loosely,
and he said, no, I know, I like how you're
phrasing it, but at least the first time, can you
just hit the actual melody on the actual the nearness
of because it's such a classic song, hit that melody

(40:00):
every time I sing that song. Now I think about him.
But yeah, stuff like that. Like he wasn't trying to
put me in a box or change anything. It was
just the stuff that makes the melodies, you know, the
stuff that we needed to hear, picking a take, comping vocals.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
He had this crazy like contraption. He used to camp
vocals from the seventies, remember that.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, yeah, so you could just compare different different takes.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, he would put it into this movie box. It
was like very old school.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
He was just so cool and in the end, I
just grew to love him so much. So I was
just very I was just afraid in the beginning, you know,
afraid of strings. And it's funny because he was a
great string arranger and I almost never let him do
an arrangement for me. Actually, for the Sondra Bullock movie,

(40:57):
she wanted Nearness of You, but she wanted it with
like strings or something. And that's when he finally got
to do it. We took the album version and he
just made a really nice string arrangement and then we
used it and he was so excited.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
And I remember he came into the shoot.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Would you mind showing demonstrating just the difference between how
you were singing it versus how he wanted you to sing.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
On the piano piana.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's miked up and running fantastic mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (41:29):
H Vanana City.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
And he was like, no, go Vanana zoze.

Speaker 5 (41:44):
Is a vanas.

Speaker 9 (41:48):
It isn't your sweet conversation that brings this sensation.

Speaker 10 (41:58):
Oh oh, I think it's it's just the that's what
it was.

Speaker 5 (42:07):
It's just the nanis.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
That's like I was doing something like that maybe, And
he's like, it's just the naness of He's like, no,
you gotta.

Speaker 9 (42:16):
Do hit that.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
It's just it's just the narness.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Or yeah, that's good advice.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
I think it was good advice.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah, do the melody at least once before you start
messing with it.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
That makes it sound sound advice.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, it's good advice.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
And then for the second record, he he was also
he came with us, we just we all had fun.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
How did that did you? Just just because you just
enjoyed his presence and so you asked him, I mean well,
and because he was helpful and you brought him back.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
I think we were going to go into the studio
and he called me. He's like, well, I mean I
don't want to come in later again, I was like, Okay,
let's do it. Like I wasn't even I feel like
at that point, I was just trying to record and
seeing what kind of songs I had, you know, So
I wasn't even really making the second album until we
were almost done, if that makes sense, which I like recording.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Like that, were you getting you probably were getting a
lot of people wanting to come in to make your
second record with you too, I'd imagine, right.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
I don't remember that happening at all.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
Actually, I think we were pretty insular at that point,
and I think Bruce really wanted a Reef to do it,
and a Reef really wanted to do it, and we
loved a Reef, so it just there was never any
question of changing it up. I think it was more
just like, let's just see what happens in the studio
and not overthink it, because I didn't want to make

(43:46):
it be a thing where we were thinking about it
being a follow up in the studio, so and we
kind of didn't. We went, Yeah, we went up to
upstate to Alaer with a Reef for like a week
or like maybe five days, and we had so much
fun and oh the funny part was that when we
recorded Come Away with Me, the one rule was that

(44:07):
a reef leaves at six o'clock every night. And I
remember at the time thinking that was ridiculous because we
wanted to squeeze every second out of the studio and
I was used to recording late and drinking and like, you.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Know, seeing what happened. But we did it his way
and it was kind of nice. Yeah, And then at
a Laire.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
I didn't think he would go for it, because I
know he liked to go home as he had a
wonderful wife and dinner and you know, but he wanted
to and he came up. We had so much fun
drinking martini's. They called him the Martini. He used to
make these very lethal martinis. And I remember him coming
down in his pajamas one night we stayed up and

(44:47):
he had gone to bed, and he came down in
his pajamas with his Martini glass and to get some
water from the.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Cooler in his Martino and then I remember him and
his like his robe going up the stairs. It was cute.
It was like such a.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Fun time so he could hang.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh he hung Yeah, he he just didn't want to
make the work late.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
You know, what do you think about that? The older
I get, I start to think, you know, nothing good
happens after eight hours.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Oh that's how I work now. But I'm also on
a different schedule. But yeah, absolutely, I just want to
eat dinner and like turn my brain.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Off after a five I don't want to. I don't
want to.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
I've ruined records by staying up for thirty six hours.
Oh yeah, yeah, you know. I mean, thankfully you get
some sleep and then you catch it the next day.
I've ruined records. I would say, I've wasted a lot
of time going down. Yeah, when pro tools first came out,
all the plugins you can go down, the plug in the.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Abyss and the.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
Tracks unlimited. It's not always a good thing. I did
get some really good late night after a long dinner
and a few drinks takes though, and sometimes that works out.
But I never was somebody who did more than three
or four takes of a song. Maybe there was an
occasional like five or six takes, but but that was it.

(46:10):
There was never we never beat anything into the ground.

Speaker 8 (46:15):
You know.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
That's good.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
So that late night kind of thing works if you're
just sort of having fun and playing music.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
We'll be right back with more from nor Jones after
the break, We're back with the rest of nord Jones's
conversation with down was and me. Can I ask you
about it? We're talking about the second record I don't
miss you at all.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, it's so interesting that that's you wrote the lyrics over.
It's a Duke Ellington composition and you wrote the lyrics.
Was that something that you'd done before and did did you?
How did you find Melancholia by Duke Ellington?

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Oh? I think my boyfriend was playing it.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
It's such an amazing album, so beautiful, and that.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Song is just I mean, it was just.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
So good that I think I was just like trying
to learn it and I just started singing and it
just kind of happened and by chance, and then I
was like, maybe I'll try to record this, and then
we did and it was so pretty and I was like,
I don't know if we're going to get permission to
do it like this, because I'm not trying to take
advantage of this song or anything. I just really loved

(47:24):
it and just it just, you know, happened, and luckily
we got to do it.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
It's beautiful too.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
It's in the spirit of, you know, like how many
great songs compositions, you know, did a songwriter come in
later and write, you know, a beautiful set of lyrics
to you know, And so it's totally not at all
taking advantage and it's it's funny though. It's hard not
to hear the duke, not to hear even just the
way you play it now, you know it just it's

(47:51):
kind of sounds like Anora Anora song.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful melody.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
It's gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, did you start doing that second album before the Grammys? No?

Speaker 4 (48:06):
So this is all after No, we were just on
tour for NonStop. We were, and then after the Grammys
we did like a huge tour of bigger venues. Right,
so we were on tour for at least two years.
I feel like and doing promo and like I was exhausted.
I was not having fun the whole time.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
It's a whole lot to deal with. Yeah, I went
through it a little bit with Bonnie, but I wasn't
the artist just to I went from like not, I
went from being a pariah as a record producer to
being in demand and I feel sort of like, even now,
thirty five forty years later, I'm still kind of surfing

(48:48):
that wave a little bit. It changed one one night,
can like change your whole reality. But had you had
a year? I had a year of incredible trajectory.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, but then the Grammys just like was insane.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
So, and then the next day my picture was on
the cover of the New York Post next to Saddam
Hussein's picture. It said hunt and Destroy, and then it
was like a split screen, you know, it was like
me and Saddam, and then on on the Daily News,
and then then the New York Post the next day
had a picture of my apartment and it said how
much rent I paid? And then I couldn't go home again,

(49:25):
and it was just weird.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
How'd you deal with it?

Speaker 4 (49:29):
I drank a lot, yeah I did, But I also
had I had my band. We were having fun.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
There was also a.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
Weird thing that was happening because my dad and I
had been reunited when I was eighteen, and we started
to really find our relationship and it was great and
it was really nice to have that. And I got
to know my sister finally, my half sister Anyushka Shankar
and I did kind of finally get to know my
Indian side a little bit, you know, which was a

(49:58):
really beautiful new thing for me. And then all the
stuff that happened with the record and the way they
talked about my dad or it was never quite right
and somebody was always.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Mad, you know, like someone within your family.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
Yeah, like either my mom felt like it wasn't represented
right or my dad did, or you know, like it
was just kind of that was actually a really hard
thing for me to be honest.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
You know, when people ask me about you, a lovely person,
super talented, best singer in the world. But I also say,
if they press for more details, I think you're the
sanest artist I know because I don't think you're trying
to fill some huge hole in your soul by in

(50:50):
a quest for fame. I think you do music for
all the right reasons, and if you can't do it
for the right reasons, you'd walk away. I don't see
you sitting up strategizing about marketing or the brand late
at night or anything. Can you relate to that?

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Yeah, I don't think I think about it that way.
But I think also because the first record was so bananas.
I don't have to and I know that I don't
quite want that. Again, I don't like this new record
I'm so excited about and it's like, you know, I
want people to hear it. I don't want it to
just go unnoticed. But I don't think I would want

(51:31):
it to be like my first record ever.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Again, that was just too much. It was also really nice,
but it was just like.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
H and with social media now, it's just like you
don't want to you don't want to get all in that,
you don't want to get too deep in.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
How long did it take to find a stable ground
after all that, to think this is this is where
I land, this is who I am, this is what
I'm willing to do, this is what I'm not willing
to do.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
I think I found it quickly in a lot of ways,
and it took a long time in other ways. I
think I was very stubborn, so I definitely got comfortable
with saying no. But I also was excited to try everything,
you know, like sample everything that was put in front
of me.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
I was.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
I got to play with all kinds of people, and
you know, it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Was the stubbornness, you having boundaries and knowing your boundaries,
or was your stubbornness was it more of a youthful both?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Probably both.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
My mom is a very strong woman, and I learned
a lot about that and how to be like that.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
In the best way. But I also think I was
just young and extra.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Mom was a concert promoter.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
That's how she met my dad. She wasn't when I
was born. I don't think she was anymore.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
But I've been that at any point. To be a
woman in that era doing any amount of concert promoting
for endy amount of time, I imagine, Yeah, she learned
how to throw a weight around, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I mean, have you met my mom. Yeah, she's a
strong woman. I mean she doesn't she You might be
intimidated by her. And you're tall.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
She's tall, you know, Like I was just like a
strong tall lady. So and I'm short, but I still
have some of her spirit.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
I think I was.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
I think I was just very rigid in what I
didn't want, you know. I remember early on the label
wanted me to do a remix I don't know why,
to get it to pop radio or something, and I
was like, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
That's not a musical reason. And I didn't like the remix.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
That they gave me, and so I was like no,
and guess what, it somehow made it on pop radio anyway.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
But like now I'm.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Into that if it's for an artistic reason, it just wasn't.
Then it was for the wrong reason.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
I want to go back real quick, because you mentioned
earlier writing come Away with Me. It was like the
first song.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
You wrote after the college day, no high school.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
High school. Right in high school, I forgot that it's
amazing a synth or it's crazy. Do you do you
remember writing it? You remember that night, remember what inspired
and how you felt?

Speaker 4 (54:20):
And yeah, I came home from the living room seeing
all my friends play, and I just sat in my
tiny little bedroom and I played the five chords I
knew and it came out really fast. And I didn't
have a voice recorder or anything, and we didn't have
cell phones yet, and so I wrote it in my
notebook and I wrote the chord changes above it. And
being the theory nerd I had, I had taken theory

(54:43):
classes since I was in second grade for some reason.
That's this kind of piano lessons I took, so I
know how I knew how to notate like the numbers
of the.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
The chord, you know.

Speaker 4 (54:56):
I was like one, two, three, one, six, five three, what,
you know, Like I nerd it out. But I and
I did that and I went to sleep, and then
the next morning I was like, oh my god, I
hope I remember that.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
What was that?

Speaker 11 (55:08):
Then?

Speaker 4 (55:09):
I just was together. Yeah, I think it's a little different.
It was a little different than what I had originally
come up with. And I will never know.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Because I didn't record it. I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
One time I saw Keith Richards. He was trying to
do the same thing, but he didn't have the theory background. Yeah,
so he was staying at the Sunset Marquee and had
a piano in his room. Came to his room the
next morning and he had taped put piece of masking
tape down with numbers like the order that you play

(55:42):
the notes in.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
That's so funny, brilliant. Yeah, whatever method works for you.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
Yeah, he was able to pick it out.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
You can't forget it because you won't remember.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
That's a good segue too, to the new because I
was thinking about McCartney writing yesterday in his sleep Keith
Richards writing Satisfaction in his sleep and thinking about, you know,
your new album. I don't know if it's written in
your sleep, but you maybe it was. You did there
are some the point between you said, dreaming and sleeping

(56:14):
and being awake.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Yeah, that that moment right when you're falling asleep. I
had all these ideas, and I would just get up
and like do a little quiet or try not to
wake up my husband, or go to the bathroom and
do a quiet little voice memo of it.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Was that uncommon before this occurrence.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
Like that, It wasn't uncommon, but it wasn't as much.
I think this was a lot. Maybe it was also
kind of pandemic y times, and there was a lot
of being awake in the middle of the night at
that time and looking at the news and getting you know,
feeling weird.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
And I don't know, yeah, that was like this new album.
Did you feel it's time for me to make a
new album? Because you didn't have songs? Really right?

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Not really?

Speaker 4 (56:59):
I think I think it really came from working with
Leon Michaels. I did a song with him, Can you
believe this song? Because we had worked together. He played horn,
he played saxophone on a few of my albums, and
then we did the song together because I knew he's
a producer and I wanted to put out singles.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (57:18):
That's like what I've been trying to do the last
few years, just sort of not overthink things and try
to work with people, low commitment, just one song, you know,
And it was fun. And then we ended up making
a Christmas album together and that was really fun.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
You did a lot of tracks from that too.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
Yeah, And then when it was done, I said, I
miss I miss working together. Should we try to make
a real album where there's no like rules and no
Christmas parameters? And so that's what we decided to do.
We just got together whenever we could. This album was
different for me and that it was sort of pieced

(57:54):
together whenever we were around.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
So it wasn't like.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
When I made the album with Danger Mouse. I didn't
have any material, but we went into the studio for
two months together to do it and come up with it.
This was just here and there and dribs and drabs
and all always short days because our kids were in
school and just you know, eleven to two and all right, cool,
I'll try to come up with some lyrics for that,

(58:18):
you know, And it was so fun. He would play
drums and I would play piano and we would just
play and it just felt so good.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Yeah, Reef might have thrived in this eleven to two.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Yeah, talk about a work day.

Speaker 4 (58:33):
It was kind of great. I kind of loved it
because he has his own studio. There was no like booking.
It was just like, hey, what day next week works
for you?

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Tuesday? Can we squeeze in two days Tuesday and Thursday? Okay? Cool?

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah, it's still fun to make records.

Speaker 4 (58:48):
It was so fun, and I think from the minute
we played. I remember when we did Can you Believe?
It was just one of the funnest times I've had
playing because it was sort of that time after the
pandemic where I hadn't played with anyone in a year
and a half and I don't think he had either,
And it was just like that feeling when you're playing

(59:10):
something and then you stop me.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
He's like, oh, yes, that feels so good.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
It's just like it's like you're back in college or
high school or something.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
So do you get that when you're playing live?

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (59:21):
I mean you try to you don't always, but I
think that's the goal, and I think playing with people
who make you feel that way is the best way.
I definitely feel like that when I play with Brian
Blade on drums.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Oh, let's talk about Brian.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
I mean, he was on those first sessions with Craig.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
And he is a blue note artist, and he's a blue.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Note artist, and he's had a bunch of great blue
note records too. He's on Charles Lloyd's new album. He
did those records with Wayne. We've got another one coming
this year.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Nice. No one plays like him, no, nobody, But I've.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Never played with him. What's that like?

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Heaven?

Speaker 4 (59:59):
He doesn't play anything just to play it. He's always listening,
and he listens more than anyone I've ever played with.
And he's a he's reacting in the moment to it
in a way where you know, the music just feels
so alive. But he's never reacting in a like a
bullshit way. It's never wrong and it's never distracting or

(01:00:23):
or or busy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
So it's never to assert himself no I'm here.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
No, it's never for the wrong reasons. And his pocket
is also super deep, like his groove.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Is so good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Yeah, and his dynamics.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Really quiet yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
And then explodes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Yeah, he's he's like a sound person's nightmare.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
But also it's a dream to watch him.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
So when I saw you play with Wayne and Brian
and there's Patatucci and there's Jason Moran.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Oh yeah, the Blue Note Anniversary, right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
That was I was. I was sitting on the side
of the stage and I just remembered like I felt
like I was experiencing some kind of cosmic truth and
I wasn't tripping. This is like I got a little
scared because it was like hyper real the things you

(01:01:20):
guys were doing, And how'd you feel about that?

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
That was amazing. I also it was the first time
I played with Brian in a long time. I hadn't
actually seen him in a while. He played on my
first two records, but we sort of drifted and he's
hard to pin down. He's always so busy. I definitely
hadn't talked to him, and I hadn't seen him in
a long long time, like years, and I hadn't played
with him, and so and to play with Wayne again.

(01:01:47):
I think I had already played with Wayne and Herbie
on a Jony thing, but to play with Wayne and
Brian together and then Patatucci and then Jason Ran and
Jason I think organized it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
It was so fun.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
I did feel a little naked because I wasn't playing,
but I also didn't feel like I could play with
those guys like hang with them.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
It was just so fun, and you could because you
did well certainly there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
I have to credit Jason Moran for that. He emailed
me after that, He's like, you know, you should make
a record with Wayne, or you should like record with Wayne,
And it was so like a little push that I needed.
I wouldn't have probably asked Wayne to play on that
record if Jason hadn't encouraged me. And then to have
Brian and play with him again was so special, And yeah,

(01:02:37):
it was sweet good night.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
What was recording with Wayne? Like?

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
It was?

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
My friend Sarah and I were talking about it the
other day. Actually, I was so nervous for it and
a little underprepared. I didn't have that many songs. We
had two days in the studio, and I knew we
weren't gonna like do something a million times with Wayne,
but I wasn't really sure of what was going to happen.

(01:03:06):
And we did we did a song. We did a
Horrace Silver song that I've recorded before, but I just
loved and I knew he played with Horace at some point,
and yeah, the song piece, which is just such an
heavy song, and I don't remember if it was the
first one we did, but well, first I went to

(01:03:27):
Wayne's house in La and I for an afternoon and
he just played me a bunch of stuff and talked
about his He showed me his comic books that he
made when.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
He was a kid.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
Did you see those? Yeah, that was an incredible day. Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
He showed me the action figures, and he told me
about watching Fox News and playing soprano sacks just angrily
and like writing while he was watching Fox News, and like,
I mean, that was crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
It was an amazing afternoon. Yeah, he was really one
of a kind. And so we had had that afternoon
which was really nice. And they were playing this song
piece and I play an intro and it's you know,
patitude cham base, Brian on drums, Me and then Wayne
and we're all in the same room playing the intro
to piece and then I sang and he still hasn't

(01:04:18):
come in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
I'm like singing.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
I'm like, wow, he hasn't come in, but I'm just
gonna I'm just gonna enjoy this verse and not worry
about that. Come around in the second verse, he still
didn't come in. I'm like, I wonder if he's enjoying this.
But then, but I wasn't like over ruminating on it
because it would have taken me out of it. And
then as soon as we get to like the solo,
I'm like, I guess maybe all solo I wasn't sure,
and that he just burdered like he came in, and

(01:04:42):
I think the thing I've learned, and I've noticed that
Brian is like this as well. They don't really play
until they have something to say. You know, there's times
where Brian is sat out on half a tune. I'm like,
I guess he's not gonna play, but then he comes
in and it's like perfect interests, you know, It's like
it's right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
So this incredible thing about Wayne it's playing can be
like I've been down we're talking about before. I didn't
realize it took me a lot long time before I
realized Wayne was playing on that rack. I mean, yeah,
I knew the sack sounded gorgeous, and then when you
see the card like, oh fuck that make that makes
that makes sense? It's Wayne, but you know, he doesn't.
He doesn't impos It's not it's like a really it's

(01:05:23):
gorgeous and it's amazing, but it's humble and it's there's
no reason for it to be humble.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
It's just spiritual.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
I think it was just such a spiritual practice, probably
to him. I mean that's how he can went about it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Spiritual is the right word for it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, he's not coming in in the intro just because
he's supposed to. He was listening. He wasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
I don't even think he wasn't coming in because he
didn't like it. I think he was just listening to
see what it was happening.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
You know, I don't know. It's cool. That was one
of the cooler things I've got to do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
It's awesome and it's wonderful to really really holds up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Are you ever tempted to do a larger project that
really like like that's more in the jazz idiom like
more squarely and that like in your like jazz snob.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
You know, I'm not And I feel like that album
sort of was that for me, but also it also
wasn't completely all the way there either, but it was
more than more than my first record. I'll say I
still don't think my first record sounds like a jazz
album to me completely, and so I think I think

(01:06:30):
if I were bored and thinking about what can I do,
maybe I would decide to do something like that. But
I'm always finding other stuff that's inspiring, and if that's inspiring,
it's because I'll find something that inspires it. I think,
not not thinking let's do a jazz album, Let's do
a country album, let's do you know. I just I

(01:06:52):
guess I don't think that way.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
When you're touring, do you have room to approach a
song with beginner's mind every night?

Speaker 4 (01:07:03):
Yeah, especially when I started without without the band and
I'm just piano and entering it. I do, especially playing
with Brian, because I know we'll just go to wherever
it goes, and there's some arrangements we've found that way
that we stick to a little more, and then some
that are different. Sometimes a song is really dynamic in
the set, and then I'll put it in the set

(01:07:24):
the next night, thinking like, Okay, this is where the
set will get big and it's like tiny, the song
is tiny. I'm like, well that set was a little
sleepy in that section.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
But I prefer it that way, not knowing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
It's the I think it's the best thing. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
I've so fun.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
Well, it's where it's where you get that feeling that
from high school, where you're just like, oh my god, music.

Speaker 5 (01:07:44):
Is so fun.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Are you still finding new things, like just a different
way to move your finger to a different angle or
something that will open up a whole new universal notes.

Speaker 9 (01:07:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
Sometimes, and sometimes I'll use the whole piano, which I
never used to do. I wouldn't think to go way
low or way high. And I actually back to your
question though, I would say about doing like a jazz am.
I think even though I started out interpreting songs and
I love doing it, and I think I've found a

(01:08:17):
lot more inspiration from writing in the last few years,
and so it's more based on what I'm writing and
what's inspiring me in that way than trying to make
something sound a certain way.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I think did on your new album, which we were
talking about before, I really love it and the joy
you were you were explaining to making it. I feel
like you can really hear it when you were writing
the songs, thinking maybe like a staring at the at
the wall or something, how it sounds on the record.
Is that how you heard it writing it?

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
That one in particular, was there's nothing to it. It's
just him on drums and me on guitar, just like
having the time of our lives, going as fast as
we can. He's like, we need something fast, Let's try
something fast. I was like, okay, and then I just
started playing. He started playing, and we were just like
going trying to keep up with it, and then it
was so fun, and then we just added words and
like harmonies and that was it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Sounds like nothing I've heard before.

Speaker 4 (01:09:15):
Yeah, I like that one a lot. That's one of
my favorites. And it's not like anything else on the record.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
It's not it's not like anything really at all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
I don't know's that's a hard thing to achieve, you know,
to do something that works on a basic level, that
makes people respond emotionally, but doesn't sound like anything else.
I think. I think that's the highest thing you can
aspire to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Is there anything from the new album you could play? Sure?
What do you want could you do paradise?

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Oh yeah, I could try that one. I mean, we'll
miss the drums, but you can imagine a back there.

Speaker 9 (01:09:49):
Yeah, well.

Speaker 6 (01:10:02):
Take me back to paradise. I could make the sacrifice.

Speaker 12 (01:10:08):
Ama to say, what else is they left to learn?

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
Watching all these fires balloon?

Speaker 12 (01:10:20):
I'm waiting, It's true. I'll watch your fall. I try
to stop, wait, turn for the pain.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
To pluck, and know.

Speaker 6 (01:10:39):
I've got to let you go again.

Speaker 5 (01:10:43):
Over.

Speaker 10 (01:10:45):
I never wanted this too d and no, it's time
to let you go.

Speaker 13 (01:10:54):
A lord, find a place to come you man, I'll
take yours and you take mine.

Speaker 5 (01:11:14):
I'm well again. You paid.

Speaker 9 (01:11:20):
Conversations beading hearts to always beading.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
I'm there, man, I'll watch you fall.

Speaker 12 (01:11:36):
I try to stop, time for the pain to drop,
and know.

Speaker 6 (01:11:45):
I've got to let you go again.

Speaker 9 (01:11:49):
All I never wanted this to end.

Speaker 7 (01:11:55):
I know.

Speaker 14 (01:11:57):
It's time to let you go.

Speaker 7 (01:12:19):
Hell maa lolla, Lola, Lola la, lola.

Speaker 6 (01:12:41):
I want you for.

Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
I try to stop, wait, turned for the pain.

Speaker 6 (01:12:49):
To drop, and no, I've got to let you go again.

Speaker 10 (01:12:59):
And never morning this to th and no, it's trying
to let you go.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
So high it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
I didn't imagine singing that high today.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Wow, you sound cool, And it lends a whole new
reference point for the song, a whole different.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Like thanks. I didn't know how that was going to go.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
You're all over.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
That's a loud piano, yeah, but it's.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Wild how it's a great example of how it's one
connected to the piano plane.

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):
Yeah, and I forgot there's some harmonies in there. I
try to catch it with the piano, but I forgot
some of them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
But it was cool. Some of them worked out.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
It really reminds me of Aretha, you know, when when
she played piano.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
Well, she's one of my favorite piano players. I think
I didn't before I even knew that was on the
piano and all those recordings. She's always been my favorite,
you know, one of the best feels out there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
We came this close to having her signed to Blue Note.
Really yeah, And I went to Detroit a couple of
times I'd known her, you know, and uh, and I said,
she got to play piano. You We're just we're just
going to do a thing like maybe you have Jerry
Jamont playing bass and Narada playing drums, and maybe someone

(01:14:38):
playing organ or guitarist, keeping a real basic and everything
would stem from her piano playing. We're going to do
it in Detroit, so she didn't have to travel, and
she got sick.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Ah, so she was into it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Yeah, she's totally. I was texted. I still have my
text change. I believe I was texting with Resa Franklin.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
That's amazing. I wish that could happened too.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
But I'm glad you at least try. I'm glad someone
was thinking of that about that with her.

Speaker 4 (01:15:06):
Yeah, I find that, you know, some your favorite artists,
you see them grow and do all these amazing things,
and then as they get older, it gets there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
It's like she didn't play piano and everything anymore, and
you miss that that basic core of like what you loved.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
You know, her plane reminds me of like when I
hear like I can always tell like Stevie on drum,
When Stevie plays drums, it's so unique and it matches
almost his voice, like the way he sings man, and
to read the same, like the just the rhythm in
her plane matches perfectly the way she sings.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Yeah, it's the pocket. You can't imitate that somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
You can hear it's so it's so churchy and it's
so so soulful. What do you think is the best
written song that you've ever heard?

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
I don't know a million of them?

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Yeah, I mean what what?

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
What comes to mind?

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Like okay comes to mind?

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
A song I always have loved is that song Heartache
by Lowell George. And there's a version of it on
Thanks I'll need to Hear, which is fine, but there's
a version of it floating around there with Linda ron
Sat like a demo of it. That is the version
I'm thinking. And it's just a great song. And the
way the chord structure is it kind of turns around

(01:16:29):
and the key center changes and it's weird and it's
just one of those songs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Let's see if I know it? Oh Frankie.

Speaker 9 (01:16:44):
Will oh No, I don't want to do that. Will
am here love And I'm feeling no pain, but.

Speaker 5 (01:16:59):
I know you heartache.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Stand in my way.

Speaker 9 (01:17:06):
There's no use inuition because I ain't satisfied.

Speaker 5 (01:17:13):
I'm fit to be missing with him you at my.

Speaker 9 (01:17:18):
Side, I find another place to be. I'm tired to
being your best friend. Look too, another.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
For your companion, and when you.

Speaker 9 (01:17:45):
Do, my pain wail. But there's no way at all
when I'm feeling no pain. My body ye sickly, my

(01:18:12):
mind is insane. I call on you Hardy to come
show me how because I can't get no lower.

Speaker 5 (01:18:25):
Than the whole man. I find another.

Speaker 6 (01:18:34):
Places to be.

Speaker 5 (01:18:37):
I'm tired.

Speaker 11 (01:18:39):
Would be.

Speaker 5 (01:18:41):
You besttray.

Speaker 9 (01:18:47):
The two another for your companion and when you.

Speaker 15 (01:18:56):
Do, my heart pain Willie.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
I usually played on guitar.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Oh that's beautiful, that's really nice.

Speaker 4 (01:19:20):
It's a sweet one, right, But do you see how
it changes keys?

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
It's weird, like that's what's cool about it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
It's not.

Speaker 11 (01:19:29):
It doesn't seem like something that was overthought, but it
goes It starts there and then goes to the minor five,
and then to the and then it kind of stays
there and then that becomes the center, and then it
goes back to the sort of bridgie chorus and it
goes back to e flat. Anyway, Nerd, when did you
discover that song, Nerd town I discovered it maybe probably

(01:19:53):
around this time I was making my second record. I
think Kevin Bright, who played on my guitar my first record,
turned me on too Little George that album. Thanks I'll
hate it here, and.

Speaker 4 (01:20:06):
Then somehow we found a bootleg of that Linda so
in the in the demo that I love. It's low
and Linda singing harmony on the whole chorus and it's
just the.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Prettiest thing ever Brook. Yeah, I just love Linda.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Thank you so much for thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. That was a lot
of time and you're very forthcoming. It was beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
Thanks Norah Jones for sharing her incredible story with us.
You can hear her new album Visions, along with our
other favorite Nora tracks on a playlist at Broken Record
podcast dot com. I also want to thank Don Was
for going on this excursion with me. We have four
more episodes coming, so stay tuned for those. You can
also watch the full video of this interview and other
recent episodes at YouTube dot com, slash broken Record Podcast,

(01:20:53):
and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at
broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,
with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our
engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a product of
Pushkin Industries. If you love this show, and others from
Pushkin consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a

(01:21:17):
podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening
for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus
on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast app. Our theme Music's back, any beats. I'm justin Richmond.

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