Two words come to mind when thinking about British R&B singer, songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae … serenity and soul. Her feel-good vocal delivery and cleverly constructed pop-soul tunes contain such an inherent force of positive energy, it’s difficult not to smile when listening to a Corinne Bailey Rae record.
Corinne burst onto the global music stage in 2006, when her self-titled debut album went to number one in the UK. It featured hit songs such as Like A Star and Put Your Records On, gaining her an instant international following. In 2007 the album garnered 3 Grammy Award nominations, as well as 3 nominations at the ‘Brits’. In 2008 she won a Grammy for her work as featured singer on Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters album. Her 2010 follow up album The Sea, produced after the tragedy of the death of her husband, also generated many award nominations. In 2012, Corinne won another Grammy for Best R&B performance for her track Is This Love off her 5 track recording, The Love EP. This year, six years since the release of The Sea, Corinne delivered her third full length album, The Heart Speaks in Whispers. It was partly created in the Leeds studio she set up with her second husband, producer Steve Brown, with the remaining recording completed at Capitol Records in LA.
Come Easter 2017, Corinne Bailey Rae will be in Australia to tour the new album and perform at Byron Bay’s Bluesfest (as well as a couple of side shows). Corinne had just come off stage in London when she spoke to AM editor Greg Phillips about the new album and her first ever tour of Australia.
Hi Corinne, where are you calling from?
I’m in Cambridge in the UK and we’ve just finished the show. I went into the audience to meet people and sign copies of the record, then tonight we’re on the tour bus to London which is the last date on this tour of the UK
Who controls the music on the tour bus?
We kind of take it in turns. I don’t like to DJ because I feel like everybody has enough of me running things already, so it’s really nice to let people who normally don’t have much of a say to be the centre of it. At the moment we are listening to a lot of music from our drummer Mikey Wilson who has great taste. He’s into a lot of reggae and new wave stuff and weird jazzy stuff. He’s got some good music.
It’s been a while between albums… six years. In that time you have traveled quite a bit. What does travel do for you in a creative sense?
Creatively, it teaches you a lot about yourself. It’s interesting to see who you are when you are not with your family, not with your friends or your house … all the things that are part of your identity. If you’re away, the weather can be very different and you have to wear different clothes to what you’d normally wear. It is interesting to see what is left of the personality that you construct, so I like that about travel. Which part is still me and which part has changed? I really love meeting new people when I go to places. That was the great thing about going to Los Angeles for so long, meeting a whole load of new friends who you can start with from where you are. Obviously when you have old friends, they have known you a long time and in some cases old friends knew who you were but don’t necessarily know who you are. It’s really great to meet new people and just start from scratch with them and have those relationships too.
You built own studio with your husband Steven Brown in Leeds, where you created most of your album, ‘The Heart Speaks In Whispers’. Did you have a very clear idea about the kind of studio space you wanted to create?
Yeah, I had a really clear idea and it was kind of a reaction to being in these really generic studios. With my albums, I have always made them in really unusual spaces. The first album was mostly made in this basement under an art shop in a tiny village outside Leeds. We had this tiny space that you could hardly put a drum kit in there. It really affected the sound of the record and we’d have to think about how to make stuff work because we couldn’t afford to pay people and couldn’t get a load of instruments in there. We had to be really creative. Then on my second album, I recorded a lot of it in this ballroom which is attached to this house studio. I could get a whole band in there. We could all play together and experiment. It could feel live. Every other time I have been in studios, especially for writing sessions, they were all so generic with the black leather couch and the big mixing desk and an engineer who you don’t know and a clock on the wall and there is never any daylight. I just don’t feel inspired in those places. I really wanted to make a studio where you can see natural light and there’s plants and pictures and books and lots of instruments. You know, you get to some studios and there are no instruments and it’s just a vocal booth and somebody’s laptop. I much prefer being in places where I can put my hands on instruments, you know pick up a bass or play a xylophone or the drums and just feel like it is a playground. That’s specifically what I wanted the studio to be, a cross between a living room and a playground and an art space and wouldn’t feel like somewhere where you have to make music that makes money, which is what a lot of professional studios look like and feel like to me.
Do you have a fave gadget in the studio?
I do actually. We have a really cool reverb unit that Steve bought these extra tanks for and the tanks have springs in them. They’re just underneath the wooden desk that we made. So you can rattle these tanks and hear your voice being sent along the springs and I like the hands-on nature of that. I like being able to understand science and see it with my eyes, so I really love those reverb tanks.
Was that inspired by your time at Capitol Records studios in LA where they have the famous reverb chambers or did you already have the tanks before that visit?
We had them before but it was great when we went to Capitol because we wanted to use a lot of older principles to get what we wanted. We wanted to use a tape machine, we wanted to have a lot of air that could move, we wanted old microphones. It was brilliant because at Capitol we could see them using techniques that we were using. So being able to have a comparison between the sounds was brilliant. On some tracks half of it was done in Leeds, half done in Los Angeles and you can’t pick it apart, which was a nice vote of confidence for our place.
Is there one particular guitar which has generated more songs for you than others?
There isn’t really. I like to write on all sorts of guitars, sometimes rubbish guitars that I’ve found in people’s houses. I am not attached to any particular instrument. I have sat and played different pianos. I can’t really play but I like writing on piano because it makes you think in a totally different way. Whatever I can get my hands on will sometimes get a song to come through.
You have some incredible musicians on the new album, particularly some amazing bass players. There’s Pino Palladino , Esperanza Spalding, and Marcus Miller. Was that intentional or just a happy accident?
It was kind of intentional. There were certain songs where I thought I am not getting what I need from the community of musicians I had been working with. When the head of Capitol came to Leeds, he was like how’s it going? What do you need? I said well, there are certain songs on the record I want to use someone with a particular style. I want a Marcus Miller sound or Pino Palladino. I was trying to give him names to suggest people who might play in that style. He said why don’t you just ask them? It hadn’t really crossed my mind to actually ask them. It was crazy when we got to LA. We’d got into see Pino and that was great and he was coming to the studio but on the second day I went into Capitol and Marcus Miller was just sat in reception, waiting for a meeting or something. I’ve worked with him before and I jumped in front of him and said Marcus, I have a song for you, so the next day he was in recording Green Aphrodisiac. It was the first time I realised that I can ask people to do stuff and if they like it, they would do it. It was the first time I had that belief or confidence to think that people would be up for it. I hadn’t worked that out, so it has been great to ask people and have them say yeah. James Gadson (Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers) who is a brilliant drummer got onboard and transformed a few songs, a total hero of mine.
You’re coming to Bluesfest next year. There are some amazing artists on the bill. Is there anyone you are looking forward to trying to see?
I haven’t seen the bill. Who’s on the bill?
Patti Smith, who I know you are a big fan of.
I love Patti Smith. I have seen her quite a lot of times in London. I have seen her read poetry and sing. She’s brilliant. I had no idea she was going to be at the festival, so that is really great news.
You’ve been to Australia before haven’t you?
No, never been to Australia, not even on holidays. I have really good friends in Australia … Hat Fitz and Cara, do you know their stuff? Cara used to live in Leeds and we’ve been friends for a long time. Hopefully when we get to go, I will come out two weeks early or stay two weeks longer. I’d love to be able to stay for a long time and hang out.
Do you have any pre-gig rituals or vocal warm ups?
Yeah, we all warm up together as a band because everybody sings, all five of us. We’ll warm up and get into a bit of a trance together. I’ve got really into Pilates recently, so that’s all about how you move and how you hold your head, so thinking about your body and having certain muscles relaxed. That’s become a big thing for me so I’m often doing bizarre stretches before I go on stage.
We look forward to seeing you down here for the first time then …
Thanks, I’m really looking forward to it.
http://www.corinnebaileyrae.com/
Bluesfest 2017, 13-17 April. Line up so far:
NEIL YOUNG + PROMISE OF THE REAL
BARRY GIBB
SANTANA
ZAC BROWN BAND
PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND PERFORM HORSES
PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND ACOUSTIC
MARY J. BLIGE
THE LUMINEERS
BUDDY GUY EXCLUSIVE
THE DOOBIE BROTHERS
MADNESS
BONNIE RAITT
MAVIS STAPLES EXCLUSIVE
BILLY BRAGG
BILLY BRAGG AND JOE HENRY
JETHRO TULL
MILES ELECTRIC BAND
ERIC GALES
MUD MORGANFIELD
DEVON ALLMAN
EXPERIENCE JIMI HENDRIX
JEFF LANG
RAY BEADLE AND THE SILVER DOLLARS
LLOYD SPIEGEL
GLENN CARDIER AND THE SIDESHOW
DAVY KNOWLES
BLIND BOY PAXTON
MELODY ANGEL
TROMBONE SHORTY AND ORLEANS AVENUE
RICKIE LEE JONES
GREGORY PORTER
SNARKY PUPPY
SLIGHTLY STOOPID
ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES
CORINNE BAILEY RAE
MICHAEL KIWANUKA
NAHKO AND MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE
GALLANT
BETH HART EXCLUSIVE
LAURA MVULA
ANDREW BIRD
RHIANNON GIDDENS
BOOKER T. PRESENTS THE STAX RECORDS REVIEW
TONY JOE WHITE
ROY AYERS
JOAN OSBORNE
MAX JURY
TURIN BRAKES
THE STRUMBELLAS
JAKE SHIMABUKURO
DUMPSTAPHUNK
THE SUFFERS
THE RECORD COMPANY
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
NIKKI HILL
THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS
IRISH MYTHEN
TREVOR HALL
Ticket info here
Corinne Bailey Rae sideshows
April 16 Metro Theatre, Sydney
April 19 170 Russell, Melbourne