Singer-songwriter Nora Mae has always known her future would be in music and performing. She cut her teeth in middle school and high school productions while growing up here in Westport, but her destiny was written from an even earlier age, as she would watch her grandmother, the legendary Eartha Kitt, perform. “Having my grandmother in my life showed me that there was a path,” Nora Mae tells Westport Lifestyle. “I would sit and watch her perform and think this is everything.” She started writing her own music at 11, worked on songwriting and performing throughout high school and college, and last year released her debut EP, Mad Woman, under the name Nora Mae. (Nora is her middle name, Mae was her grandmother’s middle name.) Her latest single, “Don’t Wake Me Up,” from earlier this year, showcases her sultry, Amy-Winehouse-ian vocals and talent for arrangements that would sound at home in a smoky jazz club. Her records pay homage to her grandmother’s era with a classic, old-Hollywood feeling, infused with modernity from 2020s pop. “[When I was working on this album] I kept coming back to what I grew up listening to. I would put on Billie Holiday radio—where every fifth song is my grandmother!— and listen to all these amazing talents with that music that feels so cinematic and nostalgic,” she says. “I love that classic pop sound, it’s like a movie score with pop writing over it. I thought what if I could do that, but with contemporary production and contemporary pop writing?”
Her songs, with their sweeping instrumentals and vintage-y, textured vocals, certainly achieve that goal. Her records also ooze capital-S style, from the carefully crafted jazz/pop hybrid sound to the classic-cinema-inspired album covers. This, too, should be no surprise considering Nora Mae’s pedigree: her mom is Kitt Shapiro, owner of WEST boutique downtown. “My mom influences my style every day,” says Nora. “She is equal parts elegance, graciousness, and timeless beauty, as well as edgy and modern.” (WEST’s slogan, “if Jimi Hendrix and Chanel had a baby,” could almost be applied to Nora’s music.) “My grandmother was that way too—she was a forward thinker, especially for her time.” And so this juxtaposition is a tradition Nora is happy to continue, in both her sound and her aesthetic.
While Nora Mae’s music is uniquely her own, this holiday season she does have one track that may sound familiar: she recorded a cover of Eartha Kitt’s iconic “Santa Baby” for her friend and fellow recording artist Delacey's Christmas album. “I’ve never covered one of my grandmother’s songs before!” Nora says. “It’s a very different take on it—because there’s no way to emulate the original—but it was so fun.” That joy is, in part, because the Christmas season always makes Nora feel close to her grandmother. “There was always something to do around Christmas because [of the song],” Nora says, whether that was attending the Disney World Christmas parade with her grandmother (who voiced Yzma in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove and played Madame Zeroni Disney’s Holes) or visiting the White House with her while she performed. “When she passed, I think it was even more important for us to be together at the holidays, because we wanted to spend time as a family and commemorate her,” she says. “Not just because of the holidays, but because she passed on Christmas Day. She was a theatrical woman down to the last moment!”
So this year, whether you put on Eartha Kitt’s original or Nora Mae’s cover of the Christmas classic, think of this storied Westport/Weston family when “Santa Baby” next plays. “Every year, we hear her voice and acknowledge missing her. No matter where we are, she’s inescapable this time of year,” says Nora. “To this day, when I hear it, it always makes me smile.”
To learn more about Nora Mae visit normaemusic.com or follow @noramaeofficial
"I love that classic pop sound, it’s like a movie score with pop writing over it. I thought what if I could do that, but with contemporary production and contemporary pop writing?” says Nora Mae.