WAITING FOR Norah Jones is a nerve-wracking affair. The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter-pianist may have an angelic voice, but she is known for a steely hatred of interviews. In particular, she doesn't like questions about her estranged father, Ravi Shankar, the sitar master who found worldwide fame as musical guru to The Beatles.
Jones has shunned promotional work to such an extent that stories circulated last year that she had demanded her record company, Blue Note, stop selling her debut album, the eight million-selling Come Away With Me, because she was fed-up with the constant media-greets, guest appearances and flesh-pressing it forced on her.
Yet with her follow-up album, Feels Like Home, released this week, Jones recently arrived in Hong Kong - one imagines with some reluctance - for a four-day promotional trip. The night before our meeting she played a six-song showcase to an invited audience at JJ's music room at the Grand Hyatt. With journalists from around Asia and Australia in attendance, it hardly sounded like Jones' idea of fun.
To make matters worse, while I'm waiting to see her a record company PR person warns me that my scheduled 30-minute interview should be cut to 10 or 15 minutes because Jones already appears tired and fed-up, even though it's just gone midday.
When the door to the room at the Grand Hyatt Club eventually swings opens, Jones is standing looking out at the harbour. She turns and immediately gives a warm, disarming smile, the antithesis of the testy, distracted young woman I had expected. Dressed casually in jeans and a simple purple top, she could pass for an undergraduate. And when she speaks, there is no hint of the arrogance shown by less successful MTV pop princesses.
She doesn't like these promo tours does she? 'Usually not, but last night was really fun,' she says with genuine enthusiasm. She apologises for having hit a bum note or two, but I say I don't think any of the 150 or so guests crammed into JJ's had noticed. She was dressed as casually for the performance and played and sang with as much exuberance as her brand of jazzy pop-folk allows.
