Soul singer Corinne Bailey Rae was riding a wave of success with breezy singles like Put Your Records On and Like A Star when her husband died suddenly in 2008.
Scottish-born Jason Rae, 31, had taken an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. His wife was told the news over the phone in the back of a taxi.
At the time, she was writing the follow up to her debut album – a process which came to a halt as she grieved for the man she has since described as “utterly irreplaceable”.
Now, Bailey Rae is ready to face the public again with a searingly personal record, The Sea.
Its opening lines, dedicated to her late husband, are: “He’s a real live-wire, he’s the best of his kind, wait till you see those eyes”.
Speaking to the BBC, she is understandably reluctant to discuss her personal tragedy, but reveals that recording the album helped her deal with the pain.
It’s been four years since you released anything, does it feel like a long time?
It doesn’t feel like a long time to me because I was touring right up to the middle of 2007. And in 2008 I was at the Grammys and I was working with Al Green on his album and recording with Herbie Hancock.
Then I started recording my album towards the middle of the summer in 2007 towards the start of 2008, so it doesn’t feel like a big break for me.
Obviously I’ve been recording in the last year so I kind of feel like I’ve been working continuously. But it’s great to be back playing my new album, I’m really enjoying that.
How this album differ from your last album?
The main difference was that I was co-producing this record so I felt like I had a lot more control over how I wanted it to sound, I knew I wanted to work with live musicians.
I wanted to record in the room with them at the same time, I wanted there to be a lot of movement and conversation between us and I knew I wanted to it to be a heavier and more aggressive record.
Corinne Bailey Rae says this record isvery different to the last
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I wanted to work with people I knew, because you can go in somewhere with a big name producer and it just becomes about them and their sound.
How are you feeling about the release of the record?
I don’t really have any expectations about it, I feel artistically I’m happy with it. I’m happy with the songs, I’m really happy with the sound of it, I feel like I was able to try new things that I wasn’t able to on my other album.
I recorded with this huge liturgical choir in Leeds on one song, we used a lot of strings, we used more unusual instruments like the auto harp and the harmonium.
There’s just a real mixture of sounds on it. Musically I’m really happy with it, but I don’t know how well it’s going to do, it’s up to whether people like it or not.
I feel with this record it’s all on my shoulders as to whether it does well or not. I’ve made all the decisions about the album, so it’s exciting and fun to be in that position.
Obviously the last few years have been very hard for you, have you used music as therapy?
I felt that it was important to express myself. With the music I’d written before and more recently, self expression seems like the most important thing in music.
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 I’ve really tried to do something different with it and something that’s true to me  |
It’s the thing, I guess that drives me, you want to get your feelings out and also it’s the thing that comes through that you don’t have so much control over.
Why have you wanted to change the direction of your music?
Touring round with my first album, I felt like a lot of the songs were sweeter and more intimate and I really loved that.
But I felt that I did so many gigs and there was this new amount of people turning up. I’m used to playing to 150 people and suddenly there’s 3,000 people turning up.
I really wanted to do something to match that energy and have more of a conversation between the audience and the band. I guess I just wanted something that was more live, dynamic and had more contrasts.
Corinne Bailey Rae’s first album was a huge success in the US
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Has it helped you get to this stage now?
I feel really excited about the live band because so much of the album is live anyway. It hasn’t been a case of playing people the album and then going lets learn this.
We worked in a room and it would be me, and the drummer and the bass player. We’d be recording the songs together and we’d sort of build on that.
I knew for this album I didn’t want to do any demos because I feel that you lose the original excitement if you do that so.
The album is more explosive hopefully so I feel really excited about playing live with the band.
They’re all really accomplished musicians who I worked with and they’re all people I’ve been fans of since I was 18. It’s a really good mixture of people I’ve known for a long time. I feel like I can really trust them.
Any plans for a third album?
I haven’t really thought about the third album yet. I like the fact it could go in any direction. I feel pleased with this record.
It is so different from my first album, I feel like I’ve established that I’m not this careerist who is trying to cash in on the success of the first record and do something similar to it.
I’ve really tried to do something different with it and something that’s true to me.
Corinne Bailey Rae was talking to BBC reporter Shamir Masri. The Sea is out now on Virgin.
