It’s funny how life turns out. For instance, if a good friend of hers hadn’t fallen pregnant, Corinne Bailey Rae might have ended up as the frontwoman of a moderately successful indie girl group called Helen, rather than a globally famous solo artist with two Grammy Awards on her mantlepiece. So perhaps these things happen for a reason.
Music was always going to shape the life of Leeds-born Bailey Rae. She started Helen when she was just 15, and the band became a hit on the city’s bar and pub scene. Excitingly, a bona fide record contract was waved in front of them; although, before it could be signed, the bass player — a good friend of Bailey Rae’s — announced that she was pregnant. At that point, the phone stopped ringing and interest faded away. A gutted Bailey Rae knuckled down to her studies at the University of Leeds.
Yet talent will out. In 2006, she released her self-titled debut solo album which was drenched in sunshine, became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic and featured her breezy signature song, Put Your Records On. Two MOBO awards, three BRIT Award nominations and three more acclaimed albums have followed: The Sea (2010), The Heart Speaks in Whispers (2016) and last year’s Black Rainbows.
During the course of her career there have been amazing highs; but the death of her first husband, Jason Rae, in 2008, was a shattering low. Now aged 45, Bailey Rae lives in Leeds with her record producer husband Steve Brown and their two daughters, and says life is good. When we speak over Zoom, she’s back in Leeds but in the middle of a world tour, and the schedule — which takes in Australia, the US, South America and Europe — looks punishing.
'I feel like I'm always about to set off, or I'm always about to get home,' admits a serene-looking Bailey Rae. 'But it really does feel like a consistent life at present. I'm with my family at home, and I'm with my family when I tour. I have a really good team of people that I know well, and they make it smooth — and I love the band. It seems to be making sense at the moment.'
Bailey Rae’s concerts come in all sizes. In June, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival, one of the biggest stages in the world. In August, she played two nights in Leeds at a rather more intimate venue: the 400-capacity arts space The Wardrobe, which is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. As a bonus, she only had to nip up the road to get there.
'I haven't played The Wardrobe for a long time,' she says. 'I wanted to do it because it's a really important venue for the city and loads of great people have played there. I remember seeing (jazz funk pioneer) Roy Ayers there, and loads of local bands who became bigger like The Haggis Horns — who went on to play with Mark Ronson — and The New Mastersounds. Plus loads of my friends who are musicians have performed at The Wardrobe, so I've been backstage a lot. It’s a nostalgic place for me, and I’m pleased to see that it still pulls in really great bands.'
Her latest extraordinary album, Black Rainbows, which was inspired by her visits to an archive dedicated to black history and the black experience at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago. Released to universal acclaim at the end of last year (The Guardian called it ‘her best work yet’), the album marked a stark change of direction from her usual sound. Out went the sweet-natured pop of Put Your Records On, and in came electronica, jazz, punk, Afrofuturism and lashings of dirty rock guitar. Did she enjoy confounding her fans’ expectations?
'I've been really glad that people heard the record,' she says. 'Sometimes with music, you think no one's going to hear it unless it has a real pop aspect to it.' She’s well aware that marketing is part of the record business. Even so, she doesn’t doesn’t like being commodified or feeling that 'I can't (make music like) this because... it's too long, it's too weird, it's too different to what I’ve done before, it's not popular enough, and the subject matter isn't universal enough so it won’t connect.'
Sometimes musicians have to dare to be different. Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac once recalled that after the band had released Rumours — one of the best-selling albums of all-time — their record label was clearly expecting Rumours 2 as a follow-up. Instead, disappointed executives were presented with the avant-garde double album Tusk, and 'saw their Christmas bonuses going out the window.' Can Bailey Rae relate to that?
'Yeah, it does feel like that,' she admits. 'It's kind of an entangled thing. (The record executives) want you to do well for you. They want you to do well for them, of course. But I think it's hard for them to understand that, for an artist, ‘doing (a record) for yourself’ is making something that really excites you. So I feel thrilled with Black Rainbows, because it excites me. It interests me when I'm playing it. I love these songs and I love what they communicate.'
She also loves living in Leeds. It’s where she was born and raised and where she feels most comfortable, but it’s also creatively energising. 'My family are there and a lot of my friends are there,' she says. 'I also really love that Leeds has big universities, the dance school, and the music college, so there's always this fresh energy coming in, in terms of young people. A lot of people stay after university because you can still find a warehouse and set up a business like (artist studio) Lord Whitney have (in Scott Hall Mills); or just do some interesting stuff that's harder to do in a city like London because it’s so expensive.'
She enjoys the academic expertise the city offers, too. 'Especially in the black space,' she says. 'For example, Malika Booker and Jason Allen-Paisant are both massive intellectuals, fun people, artists and makers. Peepal Tree Press is in our city, which is the biggest publisher of Caribbean literature outside of the Caribbean. And, obviously, there's a big, ethnically diverse population in Leeds, which I love. There are people of different religions and people who have no religion. It’s a culturally diverse, hip space.'
That diversity is found in the audiences at her shows. Wherever she plays, she can look out into the audience and find people in their twenties — but also people in their thirties, forties, fifties and sixties. 'When I do shows it’s like: ‘Who's the oldest person here?!’' she says. 'There’s always people in their seventies and, if they’re allowed to go, there are babies and kids, too. I really love that because, in my music, I'm trying to connect. That's really important to me. I like that we can all be in it together.'
Corinne Bailey Rae's Black Rainbows is out now.
