A little over 20 years ago, a 14-track debut album from a relatively unknown singer-songwriter and pianist was released on the legendary Blue Note label. Some eagle-eyed jazz fans may have recognised the name Norah Jones from her impressive brace of contributions to Charlie Hunter’s Songs From The Analog Playground, which had been released the year before.

The way in which Come Away With Me soaked up a broad pool of jazz, soul and folk influences and judiciously mixed covers – Hank Williams’ ‘Cold Cold Heart’, the J.D. Loudermilk ballad ‘Turn Me On’, plus Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘The Nearness of You’, the latter “an intimate solo piano/vocal setting in which Jones perfectly captures the adoring tone of Ned Washington’s lyric”, as I wrote in my original review of the album in Jazzwise 50 – with classic-sounding originals, not to mention Arif Mardin’s unfussy production which bathed the listener in the warm glow of Jones’s beautifully recorded vocals, clearly struck a chord with the record-buying public.

The album swept the 2003 Grammy Awards, reached #1 in 20 countries, and went on to sell nearly 30 million copies. In addition to a remaster of the original album, this 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition features 22 previously unreleased tracks including the original demos that Jones sent to Blue Note (the Fran Landesman/Tommy Wolf standard ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ is a standout), the complete First Session demos she made after being signed, plus the first version of the album that Jones made at Allaire Studios with producer Craig Street. Taken together, it provides intriguing insights into the genesis of this remarkable debut. Produced by Eli Wolf, the Super Deluxe Edition is available digitally and physically as a 3CD or 4LP vinyl set, both of which feature new liner notes by Jones and rare session photos. Standalone CD and LP versions of the remastered original album are also available.