Keri Noble

For a few reasons -- all of them superficial -- Keri Noble has been compared to <a href="spotify:artist:2Kx7MNY7cI1ENniW7vT30N">Norah Jones</a> at times. Both of them are romantic, piano-playing singer/songwriters who were in their twenties in the early 2000s, and both of them have ties to veteran producer <a href="spotify:artist:3EOX6d6CuTUiS1PGJfHEzU">Arif Mardin</a>; he produced <a href="spotify:artist:2Kx7MNY7cI1ENniW7vT30N">Jones</a>' smash Come Away With Me album, and <a href="spotify:artist:3EOX6d6CuTUiS1PGJfHEzU">Mardin</a> is one of the executive producers on Noble's debut album, Fearless. But stylistically, Noble and <a href="spotify:artist:2Kx7MNY7cI1ENniW7vT30N">Jones</a> are very different artists -- and truth be told, Noble has much more in common with <a href="spotify:artist:4NgNsOXSwIzXlUIJcpnNUp">Sarah McLachlan</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:08DLZqQd6XDAVteF9nSEJ1">Paula Cole</a>, or former <a href="spotify:artist:33l98p2cihs2nOciAPsuQh">October Project</a> singer <a href="spotify:artist:4TwuER8y9SLkdjv3hrIJWW">Mary Fahl</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:2Kx7MNY7cI1ENniW7vT30N">Jones</a> brings a definite jazz influence to the table; she isn't a jazz singer per se, but is a pop singer who has been affected by jazz, cabaret, Tin Pan Alley, and torch singing. Noble, however, is coming from more of an adult alternative perspective; where Fearless is concerned, <a href="spotify:artist:4NgNsOXSwIzXlUIJcpnNUp">McLachlan</a>'s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is a much better comparison than Come Away With Me. And while <a href="spotify:artist:2Kx7MNY7cI1ENniW7vT30N">Jones</a> tends to be romantically comforting, Noble's introspective, vulnerable lyrics can be dark at times -- lyrically and melodically, Fearless is not a terribly happy or cheerful album.

Although Fearless has a secular orientation, Noble grew up listening to mostly Christian music. Born in Ft. Worth, TX, in 1977 and raised in Detroit, Noble is the daughter of a Protestant minister. Noble's father was born and raised in Peru before immigrating to the United States; while the vast majority of Latinos are Catholic, Noble's dad was the pastor of a Spanish-speaking Baptist church in the southwestern part of the Motor City. Meanwhile, Noble's mother also had a Christian outlook and taught Spanish at one of Detroit's Protestant high schools. Noble attended a Protestant high school herself, but despite her Christian upbringing, she didn't pursue a career in either gospel or modern Christian pop. Eventually, secular music became her main focus, and one person who can take a lot of credit for that is <a href="spotify:artist:5hW4L92KnC6dX9t7tYM4Ve">Joni Mitchell</a>. When Noble was in her late teens, someone gave her a copy of <a href="spotify:artist:5hW4L92KnC6dX9t7tYM4Ve">Mitchell</a>'s Blue -- that 1971 classic (which was recorded six years before Noble was born) was her first exposure to <a href="spotify:artist:5hW4L92KnC6dX9t7tYM4Ve">Mitchell</a>, and after falling in love with Blue, Noble got more and more into songwriting and became quite serious about pursuing a career as a secular singer/songwriter.

Noble began performing her own material at small coffeehouses in and around Detroit, where she usually accompanied herself on electric keyboards. Detroit was where Noble met musician <a href="spotify:artist:5uUZTnrbdFHzEbFvCtl03Y">Billy McLaughlin</a>, who felt that she had serious potential and offered her work in Minneapolis. Noble ended up moving to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, which she felt was a better environment for singer/songwriters than the Motor City. <a href="spotify:artist:5uUZTnrbdFHzEbFvCtl03Y">McLaughlin</a> introduced Noble to producer <a href="spotify:artist:4voPmABWgbVXaOaXEaeSa0">Jeff Arundel</a>, who helped her shop a demo -- and in 2003, she signed with Manhattan/EMI Records. <a href="spotify:artist:4voPmABWgbVXaOaXEaeSa0">Arundel</a> was hired to produce and arrange Noble's debut album, Fearless; Manhattan/EMI executives <a href="spotify:artist:3EOX6d6CuTUiS1PGJfHEzU">Arif Mardin</a> and Ian Ralfini became the album's executive producers. Fearless was given a March 2004 release date. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi