WHEN they finally achieve success, most artists pause to take a hard-earned breath and perhaps savor the moment. Not Corinne Bailey Rae. Upon hearing that her self-titled debut had bowed in at a remarkable No. 1 on the UK charts, the British chanteuse barely had time to register the information, she was working so hard.
When the news hit this March, she recalls, “I was on tour in Switzerland, so I went on to Paris and went out for a lot of meals and a lot of drinks, just trying to get my head’round everything. But it still hasn’t really sunk in. I’ve gone from being a completely underground artist that no one’s heard of to being on TV, which is new and novel enough itself. But then when they say ‘Oh, your album’s No. 1,'” she sighs, “It’s just … just weird.”
But the kudos have kept right on coming. AOL Music just selected the smoke-throated siren for its “Breakers” series, leading up to a coveted “AOL Sessions” gig. The VH1 Soul channel is already featuring her “Put Your Records On” clip in heavy rotation, Starbucks will be promoting her via instore play, and Clear Channel is backing her through “New!” emerging-stars program.
With her album just certified double platinum back home, Rae will premiere its songs stateside with a “Tonight Show” appearance June 27 and a Cafe Du Nord gig in San Francisco two nights later.
Calling this fame a whirlwind simply doesn’t do it justice.
“And this is all just a massive surprise to me,” admits the Leeds-bred guitarist, who treads the same jazz-bluesy turf as her American counterpart Norah Jones. “I never thought that my music would be popular, or popular in this way. I thought it would be more for a small niche of people, so it’s really exciting for me to know that that many people have got my record in their houses, and are maybe having their friends ’round to listen to it. This is better than I could’ve hoped for.”
Humility is an intrinsic part of Rae’s overall charm. In an interview she’s warm and self-deprecating, and she giggles awkwardly over the fact that England’s reigning young rockers, the Arctic Monkeys, recently swore allegiance to her in print. One of her numbers, “Choux Pastry Heart,” was co-penned with Euro-folkie Teitur and inspired by her part-time job in a coffeehouse, where she “just listened to people moan about things.”
But, she says, “That was a good place to work, just to be around creative people, so I carried on working there while I was trying to do music, thinking ‘Any minute now, I’m about to get signed!'”
It didn’t exactly pan out that way. But Rae is quick to genuflect at the Norah Jones altar because she started to make popular again music that’s about the voice and the actual song.
She also thanks a youth leader at her local church, who bought her her first electric guitar and turned her on to Bjork and Led Zeppelin and encouraged her to form a short-lived alt-pop outfit called Helen. Mainly, though, she pays respect to a Leeds nightspot were she punched the clock as a hatcheck girl and simultaneously developed her sultry, understated singing style.
Rae says that no uniform was required.
“It was quite a relaxed bohemian club, and all the people there were really into jazz and a lot of semi-employed musicians hung around there, just soaking up the atmosphere. I used to sometimes work behind the bar, and if it was quiet, I’d get out from behind the bar and go sing with the bands — whatever band it was.”
She sang big band standards, jazz improv, Northern soul, even old Motown classics, should the occasion warrant it. Rae never met any real superstars on duty.
“But I really loved being around that group of people who were so into music, so into the whole culture that surrounded music. They didn’t aspire to get big cars and big jobs — it was all about finding your sound and being good at what you do. That was the height of your success — just getting closer to your ideals as a musician.”
Rae, 26, still shivers remembering the first time she was invited to duet on the club stage. A jazz vocalist named Kelly Dixon rolled the dice and handed her the mic.
“I only knew a few standards at the time,” says Rae. “I knew ‘God Bless the Child,’ so I think I sang that. But I just loved it and didn’t want it to end. I didn’t even give the band enough space to do a solo. I kept driving into the next verse, the next chorus.”
She laughs at her own naivete.
“I had a lot to learn. But I was lucky to work with people who weren’t bothered about the fact that it was really their gig. They were happy to just give me a chance.”
The most important lesson the novice learned from her masters? Restraint, she’ll instantly respond. A skill that’s evident “Like a Star,” track No. 1 one of her debut album. Already an overseas smash, the single follows a simple guitar-and-voice schematic that never clobbers the listener, but sidles up instead with a faint wisp of a melody and suggestive, metaphorical wordplay.
It figures that Rae’s major in college was English literature. Lyrically, she explains, “I like impressions, I like you to see a flash of something when it’s dark, so it stays with you. So I try and paint pictures in songs and make impressions, and I like them to be vague enough that other people could put their stories into them, as well.”
Rae has been married for four years to a professional saxophonist. And so the new terrace house they’ve just moved into “is quite a noisy one, I’m afraid,” she laughs.
But how does her husband feel about somber breakup sonnets like “Trouble Sleeping” and “Till It Happens io You”? Is he starting to get a tad worried?
“I don’t think so!” Rae says. “My songs aren’t strictly autobiographical, so it’s not like, ‘Ummm … by the way, it’s time to pack your bags!’ My album has things I’ve experienced, but also things I’ve imagined and dreamt, or seen in other people’s lives and relationships.
So my view of love is influenced by all those different things. I’m just trying to present pictures, I guess. Not real bag-packing.”
– Corinne Bailey Rae performs June 29 at Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market St., San Francisco. The show is sold out. Call (415) 861-5016.
