NORAH JONES RECORDING SESSIONS HISTORY: September 2007 – February 2009
The Coop,
Band members: Norah Jones (grand piano, glockenspiel, electric guitar, others), Catherine Popper (bass, others), Sasha Dobson (guitar, others), Jesse Harris (acoustic guitar, others), Robert DiPietro (drums), others
Producer/Engineer: Norah Jones and Tom Schick
Set:
Guide:
[X] = confirmed to exist, unreleased
[O] = officially released
Best available sources:
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The Fall |
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Released in 2009 on Blue Note Records. |
Notes: Demos recorded at Norah’s home studio over a nearly two year period.
Shortly after the end of the Not Too Late tour, Norah began working on some new songs. It remains unclear exactly how many were completed due to the studio’s completely private nature, being in her home. But the first that was premiered to the public was the re-working of the “lost” Hank Williams lyrics into a new song, “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart,” which was premiered at the Living Room’s 10th Anniversary (1). It was later revealed that this song had been recorded for the Hank Williams project Bob Dylan was overseeing which featured several other artists including Norah (11). The final arrangements of the song are unclear, as the song as yet to see release, but it is notable that Norah performed this song on guitar at the Living Room show and also during her late October 2008 mini-tour.
Norah told NPR Morning Edition in November 2009 (2) that around the same time she broke up with Lee, she had also been in the market for a dog. The combination of these two factors around January 2008 spurred the writing of “Man of the Hour,” which due to its solo nature, would have been very simple to record as a demo. Like the Williams song, it was also premiered at the Living Room 10th Anniversary (3). But this song would go on to be re-recorded with some more interesting arrangements in 2009 with Jacquire King.
During an album premiere radio session for The Fall on local NY station Smooth Jazz 94.7 the Wave, Norah revealed that “You’ve Ruined Me” was written a “couple years ago” (4) and thus a demo would likely exist, likely having been done during the winter of ’07-’08.
Chasing Pirates is confirmed to have been demoed during this time period based on comments made by Norah to David Steinfeld of American Songwriter (5) indicating that this was one of the first songs written for the album (presumably, Man of the Hour and You’ve Ruined Me would be considered written at about the same time). She also noted in her official biography that “about a year ago, I did some demos in my home studio. I had some friends come in and we figured out a cool arrangement for this song 'Chasing Pirates,' with a cool drum part. It went somewhere I didn't expect it to go, and that became a direction to look in."
Catherine Popper began playing with Norah in May of 2008, and a first attempt at a 4th album that would have comprised of demos from these sessions was completed by November 2008 (6), so “Waiting,” featuring her on bass and Robert DiPietro on drums, could have been completed during that time period (the version recorded at these sessions was the final version used on The Fall). However, for “December,” (this version of which was also used on the final album) along with “I Wouldn’t Need You,” which Norah said was written on her guitar (4) (and thus probably demoed in these sessions) there is no evidence to indicate a range of exactly when these attempts could have been tracked.
In February 2009, Norah and Sasha premiered an original song they dueted on live at one of their shows adjacent to “Tell yer Mama” in the set, with a recent live setlist indicating that the title of this song is “GTO.” (14) This was not a cover song and thus the likelihood is high that a recording exists in demo form. This song features Sasha on lead vocals with Catherine and Norah on harmony vocals and has the repeated chorus of “My Sweetheart and Me.” It is notable for featuring a guitar solo by Norah towards the middle of the song.
Around this time, it was also reported that Norah had recorded a song for an upcoming Nick Drake tribute project, to be released in conjunction with a brief documentary recorded by the late Heath Ledger before his death, but this has yet to be released and the song Norah recorded was not revealed (7).
“It’s Gonna Be,” “Light as a Feather,” and “Stuck” were also recorded in stripped down demo format during this time period. This was also the case for “Even Though,” which had no drum part recorded. However, this would end up being helpful in the long run for drummer Pete McNeal, who came up with the final drum part for the song and was provided some of these demos as a reference point before recording with Norah. “As soon as I heard the movement of the chords and bass…and the way the melody flowed over the top....I heard the type of drumming that I ended up doing on the record. It was very natural.” (13)
But sometime between March and July of 2009, Norah made the decision to scrap the songs in these sessions that had comprised a new album. She mentioned to the Associated Press that “I did some demos of (songs), and they came out really well, but some of them sort of begged to go in a different direction.” (8)
“I liked them, but they didn’t sound much different from my last record, sonically,” she told the BBC 6. “I really wanted to experiment and I knew I’d have to use different people if I wanted to do all that stuff.” (9)
Later on, when Norah linked up with Jacquire King, he stated in The Fall’s EPK that he “got together with her initially, took away the demos, and spent a few weeks doing treatments to the demos to sort of use as a jumping off point for when we would go into the studio.” (10)
In the end, the decision was made to keep the demo versions of “Waiting” and “December” for use on the final release of The Fall, with synths added later on to “December.” But the rest of these sessions remain unreleased.
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