She had been working on new songs for her follow-up album when her husband, jazz saxophonist Jason Rae, died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and methadone. Having had a UK No 1 album and US top 5 hit with her 2006 self-titled debut, Bailey Rae's career as a pretty-voiced singer of breezy soul-pop effectively ended in March 2008. Although The Sea has many hues – it has moments of levity and a few dull bits – it is dyed deep in pain. These are not bad places to test drive grief.
The authoritative, middle-aged woman who tears our tickets on the way in has brought her knitting the shop sells African crafts. Tucked away in residential neighbourhoods off the beaten pop track, these working chapels and community tabernacles are warmed by a vestigial sense of consolation and in-your-ear acoustics. ("We're not strangers!" objects a fan.) In fact, she has done two London churches in two weeks – a five-song set at the Union Chapel's Little Noise Sessions the week before last, and tonight's more comprehensive run-through of her second album, The Sea, due next February. This is the first time she has played these new songs to strangers, Bailey Rae points out at the start of the set. Then, after what feels a long radio silence, she blinks and comes back in the room, acknowledging the applause like a doe in the headlights. Small and slight, and dressed in a chic, all-black outfit, her fragility is undone by a big, unruly bounce of hair. At the close of the bell-strewn rock gospel "Love Is on its Way" – a new track that fleetingly suggests Lauryn Hill singing Radiohead – she remains immobile, hands frozen in mid-flutter, eyes fixed on the navel of someone in the front row. Mr Rae's band played as a backing band for Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson and Bailey Rae herself, and had recently released a debut album, Hot Damn!, at the time of his death.F or just a few moments, it is as though Corinne Bailey Rae has forgotten she has an audience. He also found traces of cocaine and ecstasy during the post-mortem examination, but said these would not have contributed to Mr Rae's death.ĭet Supt Stephen Payne, of West Yorkshire Police, said Mr Sheasby had co-operated fully with the investigation and he was satisfied that Mr Sheasby had not given Mr Rae the methadone. Police found three empty bottles of methadone on the sofa next to Mr Rae, as well as more of the drug in a fridge in the flat.įorensic physiologist Professor Peter Vanezis said that as Mr Rae was a "naive user" of methadone, his body would be more severely affected by the drug than an experienced user. But when he got up the next afternoon he was unable to wake his friend. He left Mr Rae asleep on the sofa to go to get a pizza, and later went to bed, leaving him asleep. Mr Sheasby, who had previously had problems with heroin addiction, had been prescribed methadone as part of his drug treatment. Later that evening they returned to Mr Sheasby's house and continued drinking. The inquest heard that on 21 March he went to a pub in Hyde Park, where he met a friend, James Sheasby. Mr Rae had recently returned to Leeds after touring with his band, the Haggis Horns.
She also paid tribute to his "unquestionable and innate talent". He is the most beautiful and complex person I have ever known. She said: "My husband is my first and only true love. In a statement read by the coroner in court the singer, who was not present, said her husband had struggled with alcohol for "a few years". Mr Rae grew up in Aberdeen, but moved to Leeds to attend the city's college of music.īailey Rae, 29, met her husband at a Leeds jazz club where she was working as a cloakroom attendant. "This, coupled with alcohol, can be devastating."
"It is what's called a central nervous system depressive, which, if taken in quantity, can affect the part of the brain that controls breathing.