Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘The hardest thing was losing my first husband when I was 29’

When Corinne Bailey Rae, now 40, released her eponymous debut album in 2006, it went straight to number one and the single “Put Your Records On” reached number two. Her awards include the 2012 Best R & B Performance Grammy for “Is This Love”.

What was your childhood or earliest ambition?
To be a ballerina.

Private school or state school? University or straight into work?
Allerton High, a state school in the north of Leeds. It was a great school for music, and academically. Then English literature at Leeds University. I was also working in a jazz club called The Underground. It was a double education — I was taking so much in every day.

Who was or still is your mentor?
Simon Hall, our youth leader at Moortown Baptist Church, really expanded our minds when we were 12 or 13 about the concept of God, free will, all the big ideas. He was also really into music and he bought me my first electric guitar. I wouldn’t describe the artist Theaster Gates as a mentor, but I pay attention and keep my ears open when I’m with him.

How physically fit are you?
Being a musician is quite cerebral — there’s a lot of sitting around. I walk a lot, and a few years ago I started Pilates.

Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?
For commercial success, ambition; but for following your muse, talent.

How politically committed are you?
Deeply. I am engaged with the news, I vote, I write to my MP, I stand up for things that are important to me.

What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess?
If I wasn’t so shy of possessions, a house in the south of France.

What’s your biggest extravagance?
We eat out a lot. And clothes would be the thing I felt guilty about if I sat down with my accountant. My puritan background says this is wrong! But half of it is costume or armour.

In what place are you happiest?
I feel really lucky that I play music with my husband, so when I’m touring, I’m with Steve [Brown] and with my dear mum, who comes along to help look after my daughter. I’m very happy with my family bubble.

What ambitions do you still have?

Theaster Gates raised $6m to transform the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago into a community hub. I’m writing a record in response to objects and events in the building and my ambition is to finish that — I start tying up loose ends, then a new idea will come in. Then I want to tour it in art spaces and galleries and museums. A lot of my work has been more inward-looking.

What drives you on?
A sense of urgency, the desire to complete things. The clock is ticking.

What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?
I don’t think any of the things I’ve done are massive achievements. The thing that’s been hardest is going through the process of loss. My first husband died when I was 29. The shock of losing a partner, losing the future as you’d planned it, felt like the end. I thought the rest of my life would be a silent void. I moved through that, with help, and that was a big physical and emotional thing.

What do you find most irritating in other people?
Lack of empathy.

If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would she think?
I hope she’d be happy and see I was in a good place. She’d probably think I would have made more records, but I’d have to explain my life story.

Which object that you’ve lost do you wish you still had?
A scarf I used to wrap my daughter in, or wrap round my hair, or carry shopping in, it was so useful — I even made a top out of it once.

What is the greatest challenge of our time?
The climate crisis.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
I believe that energy can’t be destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. There’s more to life than we can conceive of.

If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score?
Ten. I feel incredibly grateful.

Corinne Bailey Rae performs at Jazz Voice at the Royal Festival Hall on November 15 and in her own concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on November 18, both part of the EFG London Jazz Festival; efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk

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