March 30: Today, singer Norah Jones is 34-years-old today.

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Born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar, in 2002 Norah Jones launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies. The record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist.

Her subsequent studio albums, Feels like Home, released in 2004, Not Too Late, released in 2007 and her 2009 release The Fall, all gained Platinum status after selling over a million copies and were generally well received by critics.

Jones has won nine Grammy Awards and was Billboard magazine's 60th best-selling music artist of the 2000–2009 decade.

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Born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, Jones is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, and concert producer Sue Jones. She began singing in church choirs and took piano lessons as a child.

She spent her childhood with her mother in the Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine, Texas, where she attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. While in high school, Jones sang in the school choir, participated in band and played the alto saxophone.

She attended Interlochen Center for the Arts during the summers. While at high school, she won the DownBeat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist twice, and Best Original Composition.

At the age of sixteen, with the blessings of her parents, she officially changed her name to "Norah Jones."

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Jones attended the University of North Texas where she majored in jazz piano and sang with the UNT Jazz Singers. During this time she had a chance meeting with future collaborator Jesse Harris. After meeting Jones, Harris started sending her lead sheets of his songs. In 1999, she left for New York City. Less than a year later she started a band with Harris, which would lead to her musical success and fame.

Jones was a lounge singer before becoming a recording artist. After moving to New York City, Norah Jones signed with Blue Note Records, a EMI Group owned label, and released a demo, First Sessions in 2001.

Jones' February 2002 debut album, Come Away with Me, was celebrated for its blending of mellow, acoustic pop with soul and jazz. Debuting at #139, it reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200. The single "Don't Know Why" hit #1 on the Top 40 Adult Recurrents in 2003 and #30 in the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart.

Jones released her second album, Feels like Home, in February 2004. The album has a country music feel. Within a week of its release, Feels like Home had sold over a million copies. It sold 4 million copies in the U.S. and reached quadruple Platinum status, selling ten million copies worldwide.

That year, Time magazine included Jones on the Time 100, a list of the most influential people of 2004. The album debuted at number one in at least 16 countries around the world.

In 2005, at the 47th Grammy Awards, Feels like Home was nominated for three Grammys. It won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Sunrise", and had nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for her duet with Dolly Parton, "Creepin 'In."

She won two more Grammy Awards that year, for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for her collaboration with Ray Charles, "Here We Go Again," which was the first track on Charles' last album, Genius Loves Company. Genius Loves Company won the Album of the Year award.

Norah's fifth studio album …Little Broken Hearts was released on May 1, 2012. The record was co-written by Jones and Danger Mouse, with the pair handling the majority of the instrumentals. Jones teamed up with the producer after she contributed vocals to his Rome project with Daniele Luppi.

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For more about Norah, visit her Website at -

norahjones.com

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