AUSTIN, Texas – Norah Jones unveiled something new at South By Southwest — again.
Ten years after she shook Austin and the music world with “Come Away With Me,” the 25 million-selling debut she released just weeks before the 2002 conference and festival, she returned planning to play her entire new album “Little Broken Hearts” at La Zona Rosa on Saturday night.
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“It seemed to make sense to come back to my new record,” Jones said. “I’m just going to play the new record. I’m not even going to play any old songs because it’s South By Southwest. It doesn’t seem wrong to do it that way. It’s fun. This is a festival. It’s for new bands but it’s also just for new stuff, so it feels right to do the new record.”
The stylish yet deeply emotional 12-song collaboration with Danger Mouse is out May 1. In an interview Friday, Jones described “Little Broken Hearts” as a concept album of sorts that examines a difficult breakup. She said she and Danger Mouse, the producer whose given name is Brian Burton, wrote most of the songs as a team, working out lyrics and instrumentation together.
It’s something of a departure for Jones and another step in her evolution away from the jazz of the Grammy-winning “Come Away With Me.”
Jones came back to SXSW in 2006 with her side project The Little Willies, a group she played two shows with on Thursday. The experience performing as a solo artist will be a little less discombobulating this time around.
“It was kind of crazy,” Jones said. “I remember 10 years ago when I came … and it was insane. It was like we were doing four shows a day or something. I don’t know. It felt very strange, but it was fun.”
Singer cited for grass (of the lawn variety)
KENNER, La. – Lil Wayne has been told to cut his grass.
The Times-Picayune reports the rapper was cited for high grass and weeds at his 10,000-square-foot mansion in a gated subdivision in Kenner, La., a suburb of New Orleans.
The Code Enforcement Department issued the ticket to Dwayne Carter, the New Orleans-born singer’s given name, sometime between Feb. 26 and March 2, according to a list released by the city.
The home is on sale for $1.7 million. Listed as a “celebrity” mansion, the house has five bedrooms, five bathrooms, two half baths and a “beautiful, spacious open floor plan.”
Among the house’s amenities are a four-car garage, a theater and movie room, an entertainment bar and a pool house. The master suite has a fireplace with his and her baths and a steam room sauna and Jacuzzi.
Doctors delay bringing comedian out of coma
LEWISVILLE, Texas – Doctors have decided to wait before bringing the comedian Gallagher out of the medically induced coma he was put in after his heart attack last week in Texas.
Doctors had planned to wake the 65-year-old comedian on Saturday.
But his promotional manager, Christine Scherrer, says he was trying to wake on his own. Doctors are keeping him sedated because they want to wake him slowly. She says they may try today.
Scherrer says the comedian had two stents replaced after collapsing Wednesday before a performance at a bar in Lewisville, a Dallas suburb.
He had a minor heart attack last March after collapsing while performing in Minnesota. His full name is Leo Anthony Gallagher, and he’s best known for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer.
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