Her first album was a huge hit – then she faced the sudden tragedy of her husband’s early death. She describes the rupture of grief, her return to music and the harsh reality of fame as a woman in the 00s
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wenty years ago, Corinne Bailey Rae had her first huge hit single, and her only one. Put Your Records On was one of the great feelgood anthems of 2006. A warm, breezy hymn to authenticity, its key message was keep playing those songs you love, and don’t give a toss about what others tell you is cool. The single was accompanied by her first self-titled album, which topped the charts in the UK and reached number four in the US.
If there was one thing Bailey Rae seemed assured of, it was longevity. She wrote or co-wrote her own songs, had a voice that was compared to that of Billie Holiday and Minnie Riperton, there was a timelessness to her music and she was super smart (four As at A-level, if you must know). Then she was hit by a tragedy that derailed her. In 2008, her husband of seven years and fellow musician Jason Rae died of an accidental drug overdose.
She was close to finishing her second album The Sea at the time, but it took another two years for it to come out. Since then, she has only released two more albums. They may not have been as successful as the first, but all have made a mark in their own way – The Sea was nominated for the Mercury prize in 2010, the song Green Aphrodisiac (from her third album The Heart Speaks in Whispers) was one of Billboard’s top 10 R&B songs in 2016, and 2024’s Black Rainbow was again Mercury-nominated.
