Corinne Bailey Rae is the eponymous debut album of English singer–songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae, released 24 February 2006 on EMI. It was released in February 2006 in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and in continental Europe on 3 March 2006. The album debuted at number 1 on both the UK Albums Chart and the R&B Albums Chart, selling 739,000 copies in its first year. It became one of the best-selling albums in the UK, while it also sold 1.9 million copies in the United States, and over 4 million copies worldwide. Corinne Bailey Rae is the forty-ninth best-selling album of the 2000s decade.

Release and promotion

"Like a Star" was the lead single off the album. It was released in a limited-edition format in 2005, peaking inside the UK Singles Chart at number thirty-four. The second single, "Put Your Records On", went straight to number two in February 2006 and also hit number one on the UK R&B Singles chart. The follow-up single, "Trouble Sleeping", was released in May 2006, peaking at number forty in the UK. Then a re-release of the first single "Like a Star" was issued, which originally peaked at #34 and as a re-release at #32. The fourth and final single in the UK was "I'd Like To", released in the UK on 12 February 2007. Also on this date, the album was re-released with a bonus disc including some of the B-sides and remixes used on previous singles, as well as three new tracks, one of which, a cover of Björk's 1993 song "Venus as a Boy", only previously appeared on a covermount for Q magazine. Several songs from the album appear in the 2006 film Venus starring Peter O'Toole. In the US, yet another single, with the song "Breathless", was released as the fifth single.

The album was the UK's thirteenth best-selling album in 2006, with sales of over 739,000 copies. Rae's Live in London & New York official website announced that the album has sold over three million copies worldwide. The album was featured in an episode of Scrubs being sold by the Janitor at Coffeebucks.

Reception

Commercial performance

Corinne Bailey Rae debuted at number fifteen on the U.S. Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The album peaked at #3 on the U.S. R&B charts and at number #4 on the Billboard 200. The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA. As of January, 2010 the album has sold over 1,900,000 million copies in the U.S. and over 4 million worldwide, making it her current bestseller.http

Critical response

Corinne Bailey Rae received generally positive reviews from most music critics.. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-12-29. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 69, based on 13 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". While some critics perceived filler as a weakness of the album, Bailey Rae earned musical comparisons to female recording artists such as Billie Holiday, Norah Jones, Erykah Badu, Minnie Riperton, and Macy Gray.Pareles, Jon. . The New York Times. Retrieved on 2009-12-29. David Jeffries of Allmusic gave it 3½ out of 5 stars and called it "pleasingly homegrown, warm, and poignant in parts". Los Angeles Times writer Natalie Nichols gave the album 3 out of 4 stars and compared Bailey Rae's music to that of Sade and Stevie Wonder.

Corinne Bailey Rae received three nominations in the Grammy Awards, and she was nominated for all of the big four: Song of the Year, Record of the Year for "Put Your Records On", Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and Best New Artist. The following year, received one she nominated the award for Song of the Year for "Like a Star" and she won the award for Album of the Year for "River: The Joni Letters" album by Herbie Hancock along with Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae and Luciana Souza at the 2008 Grammy Awards.

Bailey Rae won a MOBO Awards for Best UK Female, and Best UK Newcomer At the MOJO Awards, the won "Best New Act". The Bailey Rae nominated two 2007 Awards for Outstanding Album, Outstanding Female Artist and won Outstanding New Artist. Bailey Rae received a nomination for Best UK & Ireland Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2006. In 2008, ASCAP Awards won Song of the Year for the song "Put Your Records On". Bailey Rae in total she received 10 awards for work and 21 nominated for work.

Alternative covers

The album's original and special edition releases in the United States and Japan were issued with alternative covers.

Image:Cbr-usacover.jpg

Artist/Band Information

Corinne Bailey Rae (born Corinne Jacqueline Bailey on 26 February 1979) is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leeds, who released her debut album Corinne Bailey Rae in February 2006.

Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2006. She became the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one. Bailey Rae was nominated for Grammy Awards and BRIT Awards, and has won two MOBO Awards and an Album Of The Year Grammy and Best Contemporary Jazz Album for her work as a featured artist in Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters. Bailey Rae was married to fellow musician Jason Rae from 2001 until his death in 2008. Bailey Rae released her second album, The Sea on 26 January 2010, after a hiatus of nearly two years. Tracks on the new album have been produced by Steve Brown and also Steve Chrisanthou (who produced her debut album in 2006). She has sold 4 million albums, with her two albums combined, worldwide. Bailey Rae was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize for Album of the Year for The Sea.

Early years

Childhood

Bailey Rae was born in Leeds to a Kittitian father and an English mother as the oldest of three daughters, including Candice Bailey and actress Rhea Bailey.

Bailey Rae began her musical career at school where she studied classical violin before she turned her attention to singing: "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 multiracial background. "But it wasn't gospel at all, it was just your regular Brethren church, very middle-class, where we would sing these harmonies every Sunday. It was always my favourite part of the service, the singing."

Bailey Rae later transferred to a Baptist church, where the youth leader was coaching rock bands in the local high school. The church young people wrote their own worship songs and sang covers by the likes of Primal Scream. "We changed the words though," Bailey Rae states on her website. "We didn't want to offend the regular churchgoers, now did we?" She recorded two albums with the youth group under the name of Revive.

Performing in church broadened Bailey Rae's musical horizons, and her love for making music was solidified after the church youth leader offered to lend her the money for her first guitar. In her mid-teens, she was highly influenced by Lenny Kravitz, and through him she discovered rock legends Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. "I loved that band during my teens; I wanted, somehow, to follow in their footsteps, and to create music of my own."

Bailey Rae formed an all-female (barring the drummer) indie group called Helen, which was inspired by similar acts such as Veruca Salt and L7. "It was the first time I'd seen women with guitars. They were kinda sexy—but feminist. I wanted to be like that, at the front of something."

The group raised eyebrows on several fronts; in the white male-dominated world of indie music, they were a mainly female group, fronted by a mixed-race singer from Leeds. The moniker "Helen" also drew attention, albeit for not all the right reasons: "What can I say? We were 15 years old, and thought that Helen was a cheeky, indie kind of thing to do. It seemed clever at the time. Admittedly, it seems less so now".

The group played many gigs around Leeds and eventually became the first indie act to be signed to heavy metal record label Roadrunner Records, home to acts such as Slipknot, in 1995. The venture proved to be short-lived however after the bassist became pregnant and the group disbanded. " Disappointed? I was gutted! I had no idea what to do next".

University life

Bailey Rae studied English Literature at the University of Leeds where she graduated in 2000. While at University, she began work as a hat check girl on an evening in her local jazz club. Permitted to sing on stage with the jazz band when business was slow, it was there that she discovered a different type of music that sent her on a different musical path: "I kept hearing this jazz and soul stuff and I realized I loved music too".

Marriage

Corinne Bailey met Scottish-born Jason Rae in a jazz club in Leeds where she had a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant, BBC News, 24 March 2008.. She married him 2001 at the age of twenty-two and changed her name to Bailey Rae. Jason Rae (born in 1976), a musician, played saxophone for the eight-piece group called Haggis Horns, and had recorded with Bailey Rae, The New Mastersounds and Martina Topley-Bird (Quixotic) albums. On March 22 2008, Jason Rae was found dead in a flat in the Hyde Park area of Leeds. In December 2008, Leeds Coroner's Court gave a verdict of death by misadventure, and stated that Rae died of an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. BBC, 22 December 2008

Music career

2004–2008: Career music development

In the three years after she got married, Bailey Rae began working on solo material—this time steering away from her indie past and embarking on a more "soulful" path. She collaborated with Leeds-based funk group The New Mastersounds on the track "Your Love Is Mine," featured on their 2003 album Be Yourself, released via One Note Records. The following year she again worked with another Leeds-based group, , on the song "Come the Revolution", which was the first single from the group's debut album.

Corinne Bailey Rae B&W.jpgthumb200pxleftCorinne Bailey Rae performing live at the V Festival on 18 August 2007

In 2004, Bailey Rae got a breakthrough when she was signed by and then approached by Craig David's mentor Mark Hill, from the duo The Artful Dodger, to appear on his new album better luck next time under his new alias, The stiX. The resulting collaboration, "Young and Foolish", was released in April 2005 and brought Bailey Rae to the attention of the major record label bosses.

Bailey Rae released her debut single, "Like a Star", in November 2005 and her first album, Corinne Bailey Rae, in February 2006. It debuted at number one in the UK and entered the top ten of the U.S.Billboard 200, peaking at number four and spending 71 weeks in the chart from 2006 to 2008. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album sold 1.9 million copies in the United States alone.http

The lead single, "Like a Star" became a hit in the UK and U.S., and sold over 327,000 U.S. downloads. Follow-up single "Put Your Records On", her biggest hit to date, rose to number two in the UK, and sold over 945,000 U.S. downloads. "Trouble Sleeping" made the top forty, and "I'd Like To", the top seventy. In the middle of 2006, Bailey Rae embarked on her first international tour through Europe and North America with singer R&B, John Legend, playing 55 shows including the festivals Rock in Rio Lisboa 2 and Live Earth. In early April 2006, Corinne Bailey Rae was certified 2x platinum by the BPIEnter Corinne Bailey Rae in the search field and platinum by the RIAA in December. In September 2006, Bailey Rae scooped two awards at the UK's MOBO Awards: "Best UK Newcomer" and "Best UK Female". Bailey Rae recorded a live session at Abbey Road Studios in July 2006 for Live from Abbey Road.

Bailey Rae was the musical guest in a 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live with the host being Jaime Pressly. She performed "Put Your Records On" and "Like a Star". She also appeared on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on the episode "B-12", which aired in November of 2006, with Howie Mandel. She performed "Like a Star" and "Trouble Sleeping". Also in 2006, Bailey Rae performed on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge with the songs "Like a Star", a cover version of Editors' "Munich", and a cover version of Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack".; www.bbc.co.uk.

Bailey Rae also received three nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year (both for "Put Your Records On"), and Best New Artist. During the ceremony, she performed "Like a Star" and joined John Legend and John Mayer in a collaborative performance, providing accompanying vocals to Legend's "Coming Home" and Mayer's "Gravity".

Also in 2007, Bailey Rae accepted an invitation to participate Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino (Vanguard Records), where she contributed her version of Domino's "One Night (of Sin)". She also recorded John Lennon's "I'm Losing You" for Make Some Noise, Amnesty International's music venture. The song was also released on the 2007 John Lennon tribute album, "Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur". In July of that year, Bailey Rae performed at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London.

In 2008, Like a Star was nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year. Bailey Rae won in two categories for Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album for her collaboration on River: The Joni Letters. Also in 2008, she recorded a live session of "River" with Hancock at Abbey Road Studios in for Live from Abbey Road for Channel 4 which was broadcast on Series 2.Paul Cashmere, ; www.undercover.fm.

During the American and European tour, Bailey Rae recorded her first DVD with the title Live in London & New York. The DVD was filmed in London and the bonus CD was recorded in New York.

2009–present: The Sea

Corinne Bailey Rae released her new album titled The Sea on 26 January 2010. The album was released after a gap of two years following the death of her husband Jason Rae. Lead single I'd Do It All Again premiered on 25 November in 2009 on the Jools Holland program Later.http Follow up single "Closer" was added to Smooth Jazz Radio on 25 January, Urban AC on 1 February and AC radio in late February. The album's second single "Paris Nights and New York Mornings" went to Triple A radio on 15 February.httphttp After the release of the second album, Corinne went on a national tour. Her London concert at Somerset House in the summer sold out, and she returned to London again in October to perform in Royal Festival Hall with Pete Lawrie as a supporting act.

In December 2009, Bailey Rae recorded a live performance in New York City that was broadcast in the summer of 2010 on the U.S. TV program Live From the Artists Den.http

On June 2, 2010, Bailey Rae appeared with Herbie Hancock, singing "Blackbird" in a concert honoring (Sir) Paul McCartney in the East Room at the White House.

Bailey Rae made an appearance as a musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on October 28, 2010, covering the Bob Marley song "Is This Love".

Soundtrack Inclusions

"Like a Star" is part of the soundtracks of several films, series and soap operas, such as Cashmere Mafia, 27 Dresses, Men in Trees, Nancy Drew, Perfect Stranger, Medium, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Venus, Grey's Anatomy, and Sete Pecados.

In the film Venus, six songs from the debut album were included on the soundtrack of the film, which are "I'd Like To", "Another Rainy Day", "Choux Pastry Heart", "Put Your Records On", " Like a Star", " Breathless".

The song "I'd Like To", from Bailey Rae's debut album, was also featured in the soundtrack for the movie He's Just Not That Into You (2009).

It can also be heard on an episode of CSI:NY

Public Service

Bailey Rae is the Special Ambassador for the charity CORD. Bailey Rae is also the central ambassador for International water and Sanitation charity, Pump Aid.

Discography

;Studio albums

* 2006: Corinne Bailey Rae

* 2010: The Sea

;EPs

* 2011: The Love EP

;DVDs

* 2007: Live in London & New York

;Concert tours

* 2006/2007: World Tour

* 2010/2011: The Sea Tour

Awards and nominations

Grammy Awards

Corinne Bailey Rae.jpgthumb300pxrightRae at the 2009 MOJO Awards

The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Bailey Rae has won two awards from four nominations, including Album of the Year; she featured artist, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year.

Notes

Closer can be heard in an episode of Hawaii Five-0.

"Put Your Records On" was featured on the Parenthood (television soundtrack) in August, 2010.

References