Same creative team, but she’s not Norah

While most of the music business has spent the last 18 months looking for the next Norah Jones, the people who found the first one have now found Keri Noble.

Arif Mardin, who produced Jones’ “Come Away With Me” album, is executive producer of Noble’s “Fearless,” due in March from Manhattan Records. And the label, for which Mardin is co-general manager, is under the supervision of EMI Jazz and Classics president and CEO Bruce Lundvall, who also oversees Blue Note Records, which released Jones’ album.

There are other superficial similarities. Like Jones, Noble is a twentysomething singer-songwriter who plays piano. And like Jones (daughter of Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar), Noble has a multicultural background -- her father, a pastor, is from Peru.

So during the making of Noble’s debut album, Jones’ Grammy-winning precedent has been the elephant in the room -- not discussed openly, but hard to ignore.

“I know other people are thinking of it,” she says. “Maybe I should think about it. But I don’t.”

Noble, 26, says that in terms of music, there are clear distinctions.

“We don’t play piano the same,” she says. “The way I’m a singer and a songwriter, the type of music I write is different.”

The tracks on Noble’s album -- three of which are on an EP titled “First Bites” available on Noble’s website (www.kerinoble.com), along with an earlier four-song EP and a live album -- certainly don’t sound like Jones’. Noble has more of a pop-rooted songwriting style than Jones’ jazz-tinged approach, her voice is fuller, as are the arrangements, leaning perhaps toward Sarah McLachlan in sound. But she, producer Jeff Arundel and the executive team did tap into the same philosophy that worked for Jones.

“Her record was so organic,” Noble says. “That would be the greatest similarity. When you listen to her record, you didn’t feel there were any tricks. What you’re listening to really happened. That’s what we did as well.”

Noble, now based in Minneapolis, grew up with the music in her father’s Detroit-area church without much exposure to pop music. She didn’t start writing songs and performing on her own until about five years ago, after she was given a copy of Joni Mitchell’s 1971 album “Blue.” With that inspiration, Noble developed a style that Mardin found distinctive when he first saw her about five months ago in a New York showcase performance set up by his label partner, Ian Ralfini.

“We were really mesmerized,” Mardin says. “She writes great songs, plays the piano very well, is a very attractive lady with heartfelt singing and heartfelt songs. There is a similarity [to Jones] in that she plays the piano and sings wonderfully. Today people are looking for artists who sing heartfelt songs. But it’s different material from Norah’s.”

Can they repeat Jones’ success, though? Mardin says that phenomenal sales level may be unrealistic, but the approach is consistent.

“Norah started with word of mouth, then [got] the music critics raving,” he says. “We think Keri will be the same.”

Lundvall, in fact, says Noble’s appeal to him is that she’s not Norah Jones.

“She sounded like Keri Noble, and that’s the only reason to sign somebody,” he says. “I’ve never been looking for the next Norah Jones. We want the next original artist.”

Small roster is a matter of Principle

For many years, Principle Management was known for handling just one act: U2, which has been managed by the company’s founder, Paul McGuiness, since the band’s early days.

Since the mid-’90s, Principle has been known for handling only two acts: U2 and Polly Jean Harvey.

And now there are three. The Dublin-based company has added New York band the Rapture to its select roster.

The move caps a big year for the band, which in September, after several years as a New York indie presence, released its major-label debut album, “Echoes,” to great acclaim. Mixing hard-edged dance rhythms and late-’70s post-punk influences, the group joined Interpol as one of the hottest Big Apple breakthroughs in the wake of the Strokes.

The move to Principle potentially opens larger vistas for the group. No official plans have been made, though it’s noteworthy that Harvey was given key spots opening for U2 after she joined the company. Both U2 and Harvey are expected to have albums and tours in 2004.

“When you have a band you believe has a great career ahead of them, you want it to have a great career manager, and Principle Management is that,” says Gary Gersh, president of Strummer Recordings, the Universal Records label that released the Rapture’s album.

Some plans likely involve film shot at the band’s three recent sold-out concerts at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Gersh says a DVD release is one possibility. It’s also not the only change at Principle. McGuiness recently announced that Sheila Roche, his longtime second in command, will be leaving the firm and is being replaced by former Island Records international group director Steve Matthews.

Small faces

* T Bone Burnett, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Michelle Shocked, Cyndi Lauper, Taj Majal and the Tom Tom Club are among the featured guests on “Creole Bred,” a tribute to the African American-rooted music of rural, French-speaking Louisiana. It’s producer Ann Savoy’s follow-up to her 2001 Cajun music tribute “Evangeline Made,” which was nominated for a folk music Grammy Award. The guests join such Zydeco and Creole musicians as Geno Delafose, Nathan Williams, Rosie Ledet and Keith Frank on traditional material from the region. Vanguard Records will release the album in April. Meanwhile, Savoy is also finishing an album by her own Cajun group, the Magnolia Sisters.

* Joey McIntyre, onetime teen star with New Kids on the Block, has joined the veteran-heavy roster of Artemis Records, home of Steve Earle, Pretenders and the late Warren Zevon. McIntyre’s new album, “809,” is due from the company April 27. The title? McIntyre met his wife on Aug. 9, 2002 (that’s 8/09), when she was a real-estate agent showing him a house (the street number: 809) and they got married a year later, Aug. 9, 2003.

* Rebecca Pidgeon is best known as an actress, particularly for her roles in plays and films by her husband, writer-director David Mamet. But she’s had a musical career since the mid-’80s, starting with the group Ruby Blue. Now she’s returning with her first album since 1998, produced by Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Julia Fordham).