‘I grew up in Texas with a white mother’

NEW YORK: Musician Norah Jones who swept eight Grammys in 2003 talked to CBS television anchor Katie Couric on 60 Minutes about her adventurous new album Not Too Late, growing up with a single mom who sacrificed to give her “every opportunity” and her desultory childhood contact with her famous Indian father, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.

Raven-haired Jones was born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar in New York but she changed her name to Norah Jones when she turned 16. Shankar never married her mother Sue Jones and Norah said the relationship was complicated and ended when she was young. “I knew who my dad was,” she told 60 Minutes.

“I saw him sporadically until I was nine and then I didn’t see him again or talk to him until I was 18.” Her mother, Jones said, didn’t want her talking about him so it was “kind of a secret.” “You know, when you have a father who’s pretty well-known but you don’t see him, the last thing you want to do is start talking about him all the time to people.” 

However, when Jones turned 18 she reached out to her father, who was living in California with his daughter musician Anoushka Shankar and second wife. When Couric asked Jones if she was angry or sought an apology from her father when they picked up the thread of their relationship, Jones was candid, “Yeah. I might have. I might have wanted that.”

Jones told the US television programme that today she was close to her father. But pointed to her Texan upbringing when Couric asked her pointblank; “Do you consider yourself part Indian?” 

“I grew up in Texas with a white mother,” Jones said. “I feel very Texan, actually and New York. New Yorker.” 

Jones moved to New York when she was 20 and like most budding musicians in the Big Apple she waited tables and played gigs in Jazz clubs. She was only 23 when she became a surprise multiplatinum sensation with her breakthrough debut Grammy-winning album Come Away with Me which sold over 20 million copies. 

Jones said her “musical roots” are country and jazz, tastes acquired growing up in Grapevine, Texas, listening to her mother’s “eclectic record collection.” She said she was raised by a single mom who “sacrificed to give her every opportunity like piano lessons.”

“She worked very hard. She changed jobs a few times because the economy wasn’t great and she just needed to make enough money to support us and also have time to be with me.”  

“My mother was always encouraging me to try different things. She allowed me to have the childhood I think she always wanted. She took me to all kinds of lessons; diving lessons, painting lessons, dance lessons.”

Jones has sold 30 million albums but she says she is not focused on selling.

“I don’t expect to sell millions of records every time. I just don’t think that’s gonna be possible. I think that’s a lucky thing that happens every once in a while. I feel like I’ve had my cake and I've eaten it and it tasted great. And I don’t need another piece.”

With her slow, melodic tunes, Jones, who turns 28 in March, comes across as a quiet, romantic person but she debunks the idea. “I am kind of like one of the guys. I hang out with my friends. I go drink a beer at the pool house. I can be loud. I have been known to curse like a sailor although I try not to.”

Jones is now willing to sing about the political climate in the US. Her new album’s first track, Wish I Could conjures a soldier killed in war and My Dear Country is a political protest song that takes a shot at President Bush.