Norah Jones at the Civic Theatre

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

It's a safe bet many who went to hear the hushed intimacy of American singer-songwriter Norah Jones last night on the strength of her Come Away with Me album were equally impressed by the very different sound of the local opening act, and no relation, Paul Ubana Jones.

Ubana Jones' big-voiced, open-hearted delivery and full-bodied guitar work ranged from blues to folk, at one point sounding like a one-man Led Zeppelin in their Anglofolk mode. He ended with an acapella tune to sustained applause.

But it was always going to be Ms Jones' night although there, too, came a pleasant surprise. Where her album merely suggests a love of country music, in concert she proved to be an exceptional country chanteuse with a powerful voice which is more soulful than expected.

It was easy to hear why she has reminded some of Dusty Springfield in her Memphis years or the Tennessee soul style of Bobbie Gentry.

With an excellent five-piece band she opened with a superb treatment of Hank Williams' Cold Cold Heart and hinted at her jazz credentials as she stretched notes over the beat and around the rhythms.

And as the evening progressed it became clear her album merely suggested her potential: this was a concert which shifted easily from a spare torch-song treatment of The Nearness of You to gentle soul-funk, included the Everly Brothers' Sleepless Nights and upped the tempo on familiar album material like Feelin' the Same Way.

Musically, Jones and her band took the audience on a journey, most of it through the Southern and mid-Western states, but never lost touch with what people had come to hear: that voice and those songs.

If there was a disappointment it was that her piano playing didn't get a real workout, but that's a minor quibble.

Jones delivered and then some. A few of the new songs probably won't make the next album. But there were also standouts.

If there was one overriding feeling at the end, it was that Jones is certainly not a one-album wonder. There is better to come. Especially if you like that territory between evocative, atmospheric country and the Great American Songbook.

Last night a sold-out Civic indicated it did.