EVER SINCE Norah Jones sold a gazillion copies of her glossily produced debut, Come Away With Me, record companies, as usual, have been looking for a clone: a beautiful woman-child who croons understated melodies over folksy, sometimes somnolent pop-jazz arrangements.
The good thing is that most of these so-called clones show promise. Lizz Wright is perhaps the best of the bunch; in fact, she's a better, more evocative vocalist than Norah. Keri Noble is soulful but may be a bit too melancholic for some folks. Nellie McKay is interestingly eccentric.
And now there's Katie Melua, a dark-haired, smoky-eyed beauty whose debut, the mannered Call Off the Search, recalls the Starbucks jazz of Norah's records. Born in Soviet Georgia 19 years ago, Katie is already a huge hit in the U.K. -- selling 1.2 million copies of her debut. Her album was just released on this side of the Atlantic, and the singer feels the timing is perfect.
"I think that in the last year music has been so manufactured," says the artist, who's calling from a tour stop in Seattle. She performs at the Birchmere Tuesday night. "But people are so open to something different now. Norah Jones is a great example of that over here [in America]."
The artist shouldn't have much trouble finding an audience in the United States. Her package is tight: Honey has the photogenic looks, plays the guitar well, and her voice, though limited, radiates a certain charm. The production throughout Call, helmed by Mike Batt, tastefully folds in subtle elements of the blues and a dash of country. About midway through it, the album takes on an after-hours cabaret pop feel.
Recording it was a breezy, organic process, Katie says.
"The band would get together, and we would just jam," she says, her accent sweet and alluring. "The studio was the producer's house, so it was very relaxed. There was no studio time we had to fill. We'd flip through old song books, looking for songs to record."
The final selections capture Katie in different shades of blue: There's a midnight-dark shade ("The Closest Thing to Crazy"), pastel ("Learnin' the Blues" and "Blame It On the Moon"), electric ("Crawling Up a Hill"). She puts a delicate spin on Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today."
It was four years ago, when Katie was just 15, that she decided to seriously pursue a career in music. Before then, singing was "just a hobby." She says, "I was listening to everything every 15-year-old girl was listening to: the Spice Girls, some garage, pop, R&B."
