After her husband's death in 2008 from an accidental overdose, Corinne Bailey Rae disappeared from public view to mourn. Now she has released a new album and swapped her lightweight soul music for depth-charged personal songs. She talks to TONY CLAYTON-LEA
IT IS NEVER easy looking grief in the face and accepting that the person you are grieving over will not be around any more to make you laugh, annoyed, upset, concerned, or just glad to be alive. For Corinne Bailey Rae, grief and the layers of despair it inevitably brings arrived too early. In March 2008, her Scottish saxophonist husband Jason was found dead in a flat in her native Leeds. (In December 2008, the city’s coroner’s court delivered a verdict of death by misadventure, stating that Rae had died of an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol.)
And so Bailey Rae – the breakthrough act of 2006 with her self-titled debut album, which garnered her Grammy and Brit nominations, nabbed her Mobo awards, and sold in excess of four million copies – retreated from public view and mourned.
The creative spirit being what it is, however, could not be permanently stifled and, after a period of time, Bailey Rae got herself together, gathered her musician friends and her songs, and started work on the follow-up album, The Sea. The result is honest, expressive soul music, imbued with hints of lamentation and tragedy, undoubtedly, but also with a sense of hope.
Going from international success, exchanging phone numbers with Stevie Wonder, to personal bereavement could not have been a more stark journey, but Bailey Rae appears to have come to terms with it. She looks back, certainly, on the unexpected major success of her debut with a mixture of fondness and incredulity.
"I can't recall where I was when I was told that the album had gone to Number 1 in the UK charts. I hadn't – still haven't – kept an eye on pop music. I remember in the very early days, getting into taxis with my guitar and amp, and being asked on more than one occasion whether I'd ever be on Top of the Pops. And I'd answer them along the lines of, 'well, no, actually, because what I do isn't really that type of music'. And, you know, I never imagined that it would be popular. It was amazing to me that it did become popular, because I know I didn't make any concession to try and fit in. It was my thing, and it worked."
Perhaps, she implies, it was down to a brief convergence of the music someone writes and the public’s taste for it. She never aimed for that, she says, and the fact it actually happened was more down to good luck than anything else.
"And I did get to play on Top of the Pops! I went on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Saturday Night Live, and the Grammy Awards – where Stevie Wonder introduced me. I was standing there, thinking, am I really from Leeds? It was just so strange meeting people whose music you grew up with. You're waiting for an introduction and the next thing you know is they're standing beside you – they know your work, and they want to say hello to you.
“I suppose more than anything it’s good that you’re getting unsolicited praise from people you respect, but it’s quite mind blowing, really.”
How did she cope? She says it didn’t change her life that much, and that in terms of fame or celebrity, there was never any paparazzi interest in her. “I was just working loads. The success didn’t bleed into my life in any major way, but that’s because I just wanted to do my music – no fashion awards, no film roles, no chat shows. And I was consciously trying not to develop myself as a media personality. I certainly think if you write your own music then it’s enough of an expression of yourself.”
Bailey Rae regards the best soul music as being a channel for candid and essentially ethical communication. "It's definitely more expressive and honest, isn't it? Angsty guitar music can be a front or a cover-up – not all the time, I admit, but it can be more posturing than not. Whereas soul music, when it works, is good at revealing true emotions. For me, I feel it comes out as a natural expression. The songs I've written for The Seahave been a process of pushing myself through emotions. I wanted to show strain, or at least put myself through that. That's part of what soul music is, or at least my understanding of it."
Bailey Rae will not address any direct queries in relation to the main inspiration of The Sea, but she has little problem talking tangentially about the issues. Is The Sea weighted down or lifted up by events that have taken place in her life in the past two years?
“It’s really a reflection,” she responds. “I’d written some songs before and some songs after, so it’s a true representation of all the different things I’ve been through in the last few years. And also, not every single song is about me and my own experiences. I was really surprised when we were mastering the album how up the songs sounded. Pleased and relieved.”
And what about the sense of expectation for the belated follow-up to a multi-million selling debut? Will it bother her if it filters out slowly? It’s fair to say that Bailey Rae’s previous music was of the surreptitious kind – pleasant, polite, well crafted, but not so remarkable that it produced a wow factor. The Sea, however, reveals a woman and an artist who has been transformed. Lightweight pop/soul has been replaced with depth-charged personal songs.
“I’m okay if it sells nicely,” she says evenly. “I don’t feel pressured at all from any quarter. If anything, because there’s been such disinterest in me over the past two years – quite a big gap in pop music terms – I feel it’s up to me to engage with people, and win them over.”
- The Sea is released today.
