Saturday, February 11, 2006

Norah has been doing Willie Nelson....

By Melinda Newman

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - When you have snared a trophy case full of Grammy Awards in one sitting, including ones for album of the year and best new artist, it is a little hard to fly under the radar. But that is exactly what Norah Jones and her friends are trying to do with the self-titled debut from the Little Willies, out March 7 on Milking Bull Records/EMI.

The album is a loose-limbed collection of country classics by artists such as Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson, with four originals sprinkled in. For a brief while, the Little Willies were able to keep the crowds at bay during their semi-regular gigs at New York's Living Room, a small club on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But as word spread of the band's lineup -- Jones, Lee Alexander, Richard Julian, Jim Campilongo and Dan Reiser -- the lines out the door got longer and longer.

Although the band is named for its devotion to Willie Nelson, its members certainly were not beyond having a little good-natured fun with the name. "After a while, people recognized the Little Willies name and the shows were getting too crowded, so they changed to the Well Hungarians," says Zach Hochkeppel, VP of marketing for EMI Jazz and Classics. - complete article

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