Norah comes home with 'heartfelt' set: Blue Note aims to recapture debut album magic.(Talent)

Over the past two years, the word has taken Norah Jones' intimate invitation to Come Away With Me quite literally.

Her 2002 debut album captured the hearts of millions of record buyers--16m to date--as well as eight Grammys. While no one could have predicted the eventual reaction to the singer's first Blue Note set, Arif Mardin--whose producer of the year accolade swelled the album's Grammy haul--believes the time was ripe for the public to accept "heartfelt songs and real songwriters".

Next month her second Blue Note album, Feels Like Home, attempts to further tap into that appetite for "authenticity". It is released in the UK on February 9 and the following day in the US--and preceded on January 13 by lead-off track Sunrise in the States (released after the album here).

"Her singing is even more heartfelt, her piano and Wurlitzer-playing so skilful it reminds me of the greats like Donnie Hathaway or Ray Charles," says Mardin, once again producer.

With Mardin and the same band behind her, Jones does not meddle too much with a successful formula, although the new work features a number of collaborators, including Dolly Parton, with whom the singer duetted at Nashville's Country Music Awards last year.

The album was recorded partly in Woodstock--where Dolly Parton's bluegrass-tinged duet with Jones, Creepin' In, was captured in an hour, according to Mardin--and New York's Avatar and Sear Sound studios, with 22 songs distilled to 12 tracks. The Band's Levon Helm and Garth Hudson join Jones on What Am I To You.

Blue Note president Bruce Lundvall's highlight is Jones' interpretation of Duke Ellington's piano instrumental Melancholia--recorded for Capitol in the Fifties--to which she wrote lyrics, re-titling it Don't Miss You At All.