Keri Noble

Piano-playing Minneapolis-via-Detroit singer/songwriter Keri Noble made her major-label debut in 2004 with FEARLESS. With an emotional, introspective songwriting style, and a pliable voice alternating between soft and soulful, Noble harked back to the mid-’90s Lilith Fair set, if not to the sophisticated early-’70s singer/songwriter sounds of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, et al (she eventually recorded Mitchell’s “River” for a Christmas EP). Though she didn’t take off the way her label, EMI, might have hoped, Noble--like so many other American artists--wound up finding an appreciative audience for her music in Japan.