Okkervil River, Ryan Adams On Norah Jones Album

08/21/09 2:54pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

So much for "retiring" from the music business.

Ryan Adams is one of the songwriters on Norah Jones' upcoming as-yet-untitled fourth studio album, which will be released in November through Blue Note.

The disc also features a contribution from Okkervil River's Will Sheff. Jones has also enlisted members of Tom Waits' backing band on 2000's Mule Variations.

Jones is reportedly trying to make a record which contains more guitar than piano and more pop than jazz, so these collaborations sort of make sense.

"I knew I wanted to try some different things on this album," Jones said of the Jacquire King-produced disc (Modest Mouse, Kings Of Leon, Ryan Adams). "I'd been playing with the same musicians for a long time. We're all still friendly and I hope we play together again, but it felt like a good time to work with new people and experiment with different sounds."

Lest you think this and enjoying married life with Mandy Moore are the only things Adams has been doing lately, the singer/songwriter will launch an exhibit of his artwork at New York's Morrison Hotel Gallery in September. He'll be the gallery's artist-in-residence that month, and the pieces he creates will be auctioned on Sept. 23 to support Housing Works, which works to provide housing for homeless people living with HIV/AIDS in New York.

Adams could also be the "popular recording artist" behind The Awl website's new theme song, "The Awl, The Song (Hair Metal Version)." New York magazine seems to think Adams wrote the song. Whoever wrote it is soon going to have their own column on The Awl, at any rate...

Adams published Infinity Blues, a book of poetry and short stories, earlier this year. Its follow-up, Hello Sunshine, is due out this fall.