4 to Watch: Corinne Bailey Rae

It was a quirky path to fame for 26-year-old ex-English-lit major Corinne Bailey Rae. She didn’t hone her craft on Britain’s requisite pub or coffeehouse circuit like most young artists—instead, she learned the ropes working shifts as a hat-check girl. How did she swing it? Easy, chortles Rae, who was fortunate enough to get hired by one of Leeds’ hippest jazz/blues nightspots.

Rae had already attempted a music career (with ill-fated alt-folk combo Helen) when a lounge crooner invited her onstage that first fateful night. She waffled, then timidly accepted. Rae only knew a few standards—she chose “God Bless The Child.” The experience was transforming. “I just loved it and I didn’t want it to end,” she says. “I didn’t even give the band enough space to do a solo—I kept racing into the next verse, the next chorus. I had a lot to learn.” Which she soon did, from countless jazz and R&B acts passing through—“people who were just leagues ahead of me, musically, but who didn’t have a massive ego and were happy to put aside some of their time for me.” Quick-study Rae became the club’s main draw.

In her own songs—lilting ballad “Like A Star,” midtempo groover “Put Your Records On” and the Teitur-cowritten “Choux Pastry Heart”—Rae now employs a new space-conscious restraint, giving her fluttery vocals and delicate guitar-work room to breathe. And just like her anonymous tutors, she remains unusually humble about her chart-topping coup. “I’ve been naturally limited by my own lack of skills,” Rae describes her allure. “And the only songs I can really play on guitar are my own.”