”Nelson Mandela is someone who I have admired since I was a child. His application of forgiveness and justice are an example to the world”.
In the three years since she shot to prominence with one of the most successful debut albums of all time, the self-titled Corinne Bailey Rae.
The album has been fêted around the world with critical acclaim and public affection. Hits such as Like A Star and Put Your Records On helped propel her eponymous album to over 4-million sales and carved her a place in history becoming the first ever-UK artist to debut in the Billboard Top 20, leading the way for the rise of a whole new generation of British female artists to follow.
Her many UK industry awards from the likes of Q, Mojo and MOBO, plus her multiple Brit, Ivor Novello and Grammy nominations were followed by her recent Grammy Awards for her work with Herbie Hancock (2008) and Al Green (2009) – further acknowledgment of her position as a shining new light in music.
As Stevie Wonder was drawn to say, “As long as I hear songs and voices by new artists like Corinne I know the future of music is safe.”
Like many other artists, she has tried also to use her fame in small ways to help those less advantaged than herself. Alongside her work as an ambassador for the Nelson Mandela 46664 charity, Corinne has become a Friend of Children of Peace, an ambassador for CORD, and played a part in the inaugural Peace One Day and Live Earth concerts.
It is probably through her involvement with the water charity Pump Aid, that Corinne is best known for her extra-curricular activities. Since 2006, Corinne has worked both publicly and privately to help build awareness and funding of Pump Aid’s vital work in Zimbabwe and Malawi, to bring affordable, clean water and sanitation to some of the most impoverished people in the world. Visiting projects in Malawi and lending her image and endorsement to the bottled water Thirsty Planet has ensured a continued stream of funding to Pump Aid whilst most recently she fronted appeals in both The Times and BBC Radio 4, alongside journalist Matthew Parris and Aqua-Aid, which helped raise an incredible £800 000.
The success of these ever-growing campaigns have given hope in a very real way to all involved in them, and these activities and concerns have continued to receive Corinne’s attention even while she has withdrawn from the public eye following her husband’s death in March 2008.
Of her own life, Corinne says:
“I started off singing in church, I suppose, but people think it must have been a gospel church because of the whole, you know, black assumption,” she says in reference to her mixed-race background (her father is West Indian, her mother English).
“But it wasn’t gospel at all, it was just your regular church, very middle-class, where we would sing these harmonies every Sunday. It was always my favourite part of the service, the singing.”
A move to a down-at-the-heels Baptist church followed, where the choir alternated between traditional hymns and wilder worship songs. The experience broadened Corinne’s tastes and when her youth leader offered to buy her an electric guitar she grabbed the opportunity with both hands. So began her love affair with making music, and she soon developed a healthy appetite for one of the most innovative bands that rock and roll had to offer, namely, Led Zeppelin.
“I loved that band during my teens,” she says. “I wanted, somehow, to follow in their footsteps, and to create music of my own.”
This she has duly done. Her self-titled debut album entered the UK album chart at number one.
Corinne Bailey Rae was born and raised in Leeds, England. The eldest of three daughters, she studied classical violin at school, but any ambitions to take this to a higher level were quickly scotched when the aforementioned Zeppelin fixation took hold. At 15, Corinne, influenced by female-led, indie noiseniks like Veruca Salt and L7, started her own band, named Helen. After attracting considerable local attention, Helen was offered a deal by Roadrunner Records. All was going well – until the bassist got pregnant and the band imploded.
“Disappointed? I was gutted,” Bailey Rae says now. “I had no idea what to do next.”
She went off to Leeds University where she studied English literature and spent evenings working as a modern-day hatcheck girl at a nearby jazz club. Every now and then she was allowed to sing with the band, and from those evenings new ideas began to form. Thus her songwriting evolved from noisy indie fare to more soulful, solo terrain.
“I love classic songs because they are so pure and succinct,” she says. “That’s what I try to do with my own songs. They are short and sweet, to the point. I like the idea of leaving people wanting more, not less, you know?”
Inspired as much by Björk and Massive Attack as, say, Jill Scott, she went into the studio and came up with her debut album. It is in Bailey Rae’s own words, “a little bit of everything: it’s chilled out, acoustic, kooky, atmospheric and soulful”.
And if she writes about the staple of all great soul songs – love – then she does so with less emphasis on its pink fluffiness than its unwritten complexities and numerous challenges.
“I’m interested in the things that no one ever tells you about in relationships, about how love works in terms of expectation versus reality,” she says.
“The response so far has been amazing,” says Bailey Rae, “and that has been very satisfying, because all this feels so right to me. Writing songs and playing music is precisely what I should be doing with my life.”