Corinne Bailey Rae life and biography

Corinne Bailey Rae 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 two Grammy Awards; Album of the Year 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 almost three 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 over 5 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.

In 2006 Corinne Bailey Rae released her self-titled debut album, a record she had recorded on a shoestring budget while still unsigned. An early appearance on BBC2's 'Later With Jools' and some intimate gigs around the UK had already started a word-of-mouth buzz leading her to be tipped as the next big thing. But the success of that album was instant and immense. Debuting at Number One in the UK, featuring hit singles such as 'Put Your Records On' and 'Like A Star', becoming a smash-hit around the world, and crashing straight into the Billboard Top 20 in the US - the first British female singer-songwriter to do so in decades - meant Bailey Rae gained a huge global audience within months.

And now, four years and four-million album sales later, comes the long-awaited second album. For the 30-year-old singer and songwriter from Leeds, this meant politely declining the suggestions that she work with this or that big-league producer in this or that big-money studio. It meant co-producing the album herself with friends and musicians she had worked with in the past to retain intimacy and control, shrugging off the huge, worldwide expectations engendered by the self-titled debut and refusing to be bedazzled by that album's multiple Grammy and Brit Award nominations.

Studio albums:
2006: Corinne Bailey Rae
2010: The Sea

Awards and nominations:

2007 Corinne Bailey Rae Best New Artist Nominated
"Put Your Records On" Record of the Year Nominated
Song of the Year Nominated
2008 "Like a Star" Song of the Year Nominated
2010 Nominated Soul and Jazz Awards Album of the Year The Sea
Won Best Album R&B of the Year
Nominated Artist of the Year Corinne Bailey Rae
Won Best Artist of the Year Act Soul/R&B

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