Corinne Bailey Rae’s signature tune is undoubtedly “Put Your Data On,” which mixes folksy lullabies and ear-worm pop hooks with soulful, jazzy sensibilities. However the craving ballad “Do You Ever Consider Me” from 2016’s The Coronary heart Speaks in Whispers is simply as outstanding. Connecting soul music’s previous with its current, this music interpolates the melody of Curtis Mayfield’s “The Makings of You.” However whereas Mayfield’s beautiful melody shapes the early elements of “Do You Ever Consider Me,” Bailey Rae finally diverts from it. Her dulcet, supple voice guides the listener to an prolonged outro with hypnotic repetitions of the title lyric.
Bailey Rae co-wrote the music with Valerie Simpson of famed recording and songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson. Together with her late husband Nickolas Ashford, Simpson wrote stone-cold classics for the likes of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (“Ain’t No Mountain Excessive Sufficient”) Diana Ross (“The Boss”), and Chaka Khan (“I’m Each Lady”). Having already met some years prior at Ashford and Simpson’s Sugar Bar membership in New York Metropolis, Bailey Rae and Simpson mentioned collaborating after crossing paths at a MusiCares live performance in 2015. They bonded over their shared experiences of loss and tragedy: Bailey Rae’s first husband Jason Rae died in 2008 after an unintentional overdose, whereas Simpson misplaced her husband in 2011 to throat most cancers.
Chatting with MOJO in 2016, Bailey Rae recalled receiving an electronic mail from Simpson after first taking part in her “Do You Ever Consider Me”. “[Valerie had] hooked up a file of her singing my music, however her model of the music, including her personal lyrics, and these superb piano chords below the place she sang ‘Why did it have to finish?’ She’d smashed it,” Bailey Rae says. They completed writing the music at Simpson’s dwelling.
“It touched my coronary heart as a result of it was the primary time I had tried to associate with any person [other than] my late husband,” Simpson advised me in an interview. She famous how Bailey Rae’s voice has an identical “sweetness” to Mayfield’s. “It may be comfortable and sensual and robust and soulful,” she defined, reflecting fondly on when she carried out the music with Bailey Rae in New York Metropolis.
“Do You Ever Consider Me” is the product of an intergenerational dialogue: A key protagonist of Twenty first-century soul music becoming a member of forces with one of many style’s veteran songwriters, whereas honoring the work of one other soul legend. The outcomes are magical.
Take heed to Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Do You Ever Consider Me” now.