Corinne Bailey Rae was born on February 26, 1979 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, to a Kittisian father and an English mother, and she was the eldest of three daughters. Her musical career began at school, where she studied classical violin before she turned her attention to singing. On her website, corinnebaileyrae.net, she explains: "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. 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."
She would later transfer to a Baptist church, however, where the choir would sing traditional hymns, and Primal Scream songs. "We changed the words though," Rae states on her website. "We didn't want to offend the regular churchgoers, now did we?"
Her love for music was deepened by performing in church, and when her youth leader offered to but her an electric guitar, it was a sign. In her mid-teens, she was heavily influenced by rockers Led Zeppelin, and was fueled to make music of her own. She formed an all-female indie-rock 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,” she says on the website.
However, this dream was not meant to be as the bassist became pregnant and the group disbanded.
After this disappointment, Corinne headed to the University of Leeds, where she majored in English Literature. While at University, she worked as a hatcheck girl in the evenings in a local jazz club. She was permitted to sing on stage with the jazz band when business was slow, and she soon discovered a different type of music that set her on a completely different musical path. “I kept hearing this jazz and soul stuff and I realised I loved that music too,” she says. It was there also that she met saxophone player, Jason Rae, who she married in 2001. He now plays in her band. He's in the "Trouble Sleeping" video (the shorter of the two sax players, without the hat).
She worked on solo material over the next three years, collaborating with Leeds-based funk group The New Mastersounds on the track “Your Love Is Mine”, featured on their 2003 album Be Yourself, which was released by One Note Records. In 2004, she again worked with another Leeds-based group, Homecut Directive, on the song "Come the Revolution", which was the first single from the group's debut album. Later that year, she was signed by Global Talent Publishing 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 song, “Young and Foolish”, was released in April 2005, and Rae began to receive attention from major record labels. “Like a Star”, her debut single, was released in November 2005 and her self-titled album followed in February 2006. In September 2006, Rae won two awards at the UK's Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards for "Best UK Newcomer" and "Best UK Female".
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”. She was also nominated for two Brit awards, and performed “Put Your Records On” to close the show.
Corinne Bailey Rae re-released the album in February with nine new and remixed tracks. She is currently on her first UK tour.
P.S. Info sourced from Corinne's website and wikipedia.org.
