From the ACL Taping Program on October 20, 2006:
Earlier this year, when British songstress Corinne Bailey Rae released her debut album,
Billboard wrote “a debut recording as fine as this one deserves immediate attention.” And the world has listened. Bailey Rae became the fourth female act in history to have her first album debut at number one on the British charts, it’s reached the Top 20 in the United States and her song “Put Your Records On” is assured a position on critic and fan lists of top songs of the year.
Corinne Bailey Rae studied classical violin as a child in Leeds, England, but her love for Led Zeppelin soon got in the way. By the time she was 15, Bailey Rae formed an indie rock band named Helen. After that band ended, she went to Leeds University and began working at a local jazz club, where she refined her singing skills. She worked with several musicians on their CDs and finally recorded one of her own. “It’s a little bit of everything,” she said. “It’s chilled out, acoustic, kooky, atmospheric and soulful. I’d also be tempted to say it comes from a very organic place, but that would sound pretentious, so I won’t.”
Critics find this neo-soul singer-songwriter’s self-titled debut anything but pretentious. The
Los Angeles Times writes that Bailey Ray is “blending pop-R&B, jazz, trip-hop and vintage disco flavors into sophisticated, sexy numbers with the lush tranquillity of Sade and the earthy polish of ’70s-era Stevie Wonder.”
From the ACL Taping Program on May 17, 2006:
As the 2006 Best British Female Solo Artist, KT Tunstall is already a star in her native Scotland and she is quickly getting the same recognition in the States.
Tunstall began performing and writing songs as a teenager. She received a scholarship to attend college in the U.S. and immersed herself in the New England music scene. After a few failed attempts to start bands, Tunstall returned to London where her music career begin to fall into place. She recorded her debut release,
Eye To The Telescope, in a small studio in the woods in Wiltshire, which Tunstall said helped give the music a raw feel.
“I didn’t want to take too much equipment into the studio because it’s when you have to be inventive that you get interesting music,” she said. “Tom Waits said if you want something to sound like a cardboard box being hit with a boot, then hit a cardboard box with a boot.”
The honest, visceral energy from the studio shows in the songs giving critics reason to compare her to Norah Jones, Dido and Sinead O'Connor.
Billboard called
Eye To The Telescope “a delicious blend of acoustic guitar, raw grooves and sublime melodies.”
“My songs examine and explore little specific emotions or situations or stories,” she said. “They’re kitchen table songs, like a conversation between me and one other person. It's almost like an alien has been sent to get emotional samples from human beings and put it all together on a record.”
