Sometimes you just have to put your records on and forget your Blues. Corinne Bailey Rae, the British songstress, helps us do that:
Put Your Records On
I love her singing and her accent and those eyes.
Soulful, dreamy, sleepy-eyed and filled with sunshine, Corinne Bailey Rae is like a new Billie Holiday for the 21st century. Smooth, sultry, adorable, with depth — an ocean of depth. Her feelings travel easily with her voice and her guitar work. Playful. Bitter sweet. Melancholy blue.
Born in Leeds, she later graduated from the university there, with a degree in English Literature. Her songwriting talents are literary in the best way . . . a bridge for our imaginations. She’s been compared with Sade and Norah Jones, but surprisingly, started out with Heavy Metal aspirations. As a teen she formed the group Helen, an all-girl band with its sights set on becoming an Indie answer to Led Zeppelin. Obviously, this girl has range.
Here she is, taking us somewhere new, with soul, with warmth, with a distinctive groove:
Like a Star
In March of this past year, she lost her husband. They had been married since 2001. That tragedy, no doubt, will impact her desire to make music, and the kind of music she will make in the future. This admirer of Corinne Bailey Rae’s art wishes her and her family all the best as she deals with that loss every day. As she recovers from this tragedy. As she folds it into her art and makes art out of remembered life.