Featuring

Description

On November 2, EMIs Blue Note Records will release Featuring, a star-studded collection of singer Norah Joness musical collaborations from the past decade. The 18 songs on the album include duets with such legends as Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton, and with 21st Century icons from OutKast to the Foo Fighters. Jones is clearly a force to be reckoned with, as her collaborations demonstrate. She certainly does not pledge allegiance to any single genre, that is for certain.
Its so exciting and flattering and fun when I get asked to sing with somebody that I admire, said Jones in a statement. It takes you a little bit out of your comfort zone when youre doing something with another artist. You dont know what to expectits kind of like being a little kid and having a playdate. I like playdates, too, Norah!
The tracks on Featuring span her entire career, from one of her earliest recording sessions (a version of Roxy Musics More Than This with guitarist Charlie Hunter in 2001) to her most recent performance, a song called Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John that she cut with Belle and Sebastian, which will also appear on their new album. The result serves as a kind of parallel history to her own four albums, which have sold over 40 million copies worldwide.
These collaborations reveal Joness astonishing musical versatility, from jazz to country, hip-hop to rock. The album also includes recordings by some of Joness own bands and side projects (The Little Willies and El Madmo), and performances with artists that shes toured with including M. Ward, Sasha Dobson, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Songs on Featuring range from classics recorded by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, and Roy Orbison to new material by such wide-ranging innovators as Ryan Adams and Q-Tip. Truly diverse, that Norah Jones gal.
A lot of the people on this record are people Ive worshiped since I was a kid, and some of them are younger and more my contemporaries, Jones finished. Even though the musicians are so varied, the vibe of the songs makes sense when we put them all together.