An Award-Winning Album Was Recorded in This Upstate NY Town 20 Years Ago

For singer-songwriter Norah Jones, the Empire State has always felt like home.

Born in New York City, Jones moved to Texas with her mother when she was a child, but returned to NYC as an adult, and for the most part, she's been a resident in the city ever since.

In 2004, Jones released an album entitled Feels Like Home, and naturally, some of the recording and production occurred in her home of New York City. As Jones recently acknowledged on Twitter, however, "a lot" of the recording happened a bit further north.

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So, the lion's share of the recording done for Feels Like Home happened "on top of a mountain" in Upstate New York. Naturally, we had to learn more, and here's what we found.

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Norah Jones' "Feels Like Home" Album Recorded in This Upstate NY Town

As it turns out, Norah Jones' Feels Like Home album was recorded in Ulster County, near the hamlet of Shokan, NY. More specifically, the album was recorded at Allaire Studios, which opened in 1999.

The studios are located inside Glen Tonche, which is an estate atop Mount Tonche in the Catskill Mountains. One of the songs recorded for the album was Sunrise, which won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

This is the music video for that track:

This impressive estate was built in 1928 as the summer family compound of American businessman Raymond Pitcairn. It was sold to photographer and musician Randall Wallace in 1998, and it was then when Allaire Studios was established.

Other artists to record albums in Allaire Studios include David Bowie and Rush.

This Upstate NY-Recorded Album Received Strong Reviews

As mentioned above, the album's lead song, Sunrise, netted Jones a Grammy Award for her performance. "Creepin' In", featuring Dolly Parton, was also nominated for a Grammy, according to a source.

The album itself was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. It ultimately lost to Ray Charles' collaborative album, Genius Loves Company.

The album spent six weeks atop the Billboard 200 list, and sold 1,022,000 copies in its first week after release. It received a 74/100 rating on Metacritic.