YOU know you’ve hit the jackpot in your musical career when the First Lady of the United States, no less, has your music on her iPod.
That honour belongs to British singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae, who met Mrs Michelle Obama at an event organised by the White House honouring Sir Paul McCartney last month.
The 31-year-old recalled that “Michelle” said she and the Obama brood listen to her music and work out to it.
“You can’t believe it – it’s really amazing,” she added on the line from her home in Leeds, England. She will be in town for her maiden gig here at the Esplanade Theatre next Wednesday.
Known for mellow tunes such as Like A Star and Put Your Records On, which propelled her to stardom in 2006, she has sold four million copies of her self-titled debut. Like A Star went on to win Song Of The Year at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
In that same year, she put her career on hold when saxophonist husband Jason Rae died from an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. She was in a taxi when she heard the news.
“I always think of that moment when I had to turn back. My life was going in one direction, then, in an instant, it was turned around,” Rae told The Guardian.
She described the year after his death as bleak, in which she did nothing for a year. She eventually started picking up the pieces, returning with her second album, The Sea, in January.
“I found it useful to work. I just felt that time has gone on and I have been more robust,” Rae told my paper.
While her sensual voice is still intact, the light-hearted tone from the first album is now replaced with a more sombre, haunting sound.
“I wanted to do an album that was more intense and chaotic,” she said. When she plays songs from her first record, said Rae, it feels like she “was smiling a lot” in it.
She is aware that she might push away some fans with her new persona, but it doesn’t make her nervous. “Doing new things doesn’t erase the stuff you’ve already done,” the singer said.
And, while her new tunes are deeply personal – Are You Here is addressed to her late husband and I’d Do It All Again was written after a fight with him – she does not find it emotionally overwhelming singing them onstage.
“I’m comfortable singing them because they are honest,” she said.
These days, Rae added, she finds happiness in simple pleasures such as cooking, seeing her friends and family and playing with her sister’s newborn baby.
So, will she ever get sick of singing hitmaker Put Your Records On?
“No, I love singing it,” she said. “I like having a song that people can sing along with.”
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Corinne Bailey Rae performs at the Esplanade Theatre next Wednesday at 8pm. Tickets are $148, $128, $108, $88 and $68 at www.sistic.com.sg or call 6348-5555.
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