Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey Rae independently released one of our favorite albums of 2023: Black Rainbows. Justin Richmond spoke to Corinne over Zoom at the end of the year about the place that inspired the album, the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago. And then when she came to Los Angeles around Grammy time they decided to meet up to discuss Reflections / Refractions At the Stony Island Arts Bank, a beautiful new book Corinne put together to catalogue the items that inspired her new music and creative awakening.

The conversation touches on Corinne recording her third album, The Heart Speaks in Whispers, at Capital in Hollywood, to finding her spiritual home in Chicago, to discovering a mid-century New York subway pageant that inspired her raucous song, “New York Transit Queen.”

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Corinne Bailey Rae songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Krin Bailey Ray independently released one of my favorite
albums of twenty twenty three, Black Rainbows. We had a
chat over Zoom at the end of the year about
the place that inspired the album, the Stony Island Arts
Bank in Chicago, and then when she came to LA
around Grammy time, we decided to meet up and continue

(00:37):
our conversation, not only about the new album and what
it meant to find her own artistic voice again, but
also to discuss reflections Refractions at the Stony Island Arts Bank,
a beautiful book Krin's put together, cataloging the items that
inspired her new music and her creative awakening. The conversation
takes us from Krinn recording her third album, The Heart

(00:58):
Speaks and Whispers at Capitol in Hollywood, to finding a
spiritual home in Chicago, to discovering a mid century New
York subway pageant that led to one of my favorite
songs on her new album, The rackus New York Transit Queen.
This is broken record. I don't notes for the digital age.
I'm justin Richmond. Here's my conversation with Corinne Bailey Ray.

(01:23):
Have you recorded here much?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yes, I have I did my third album, Capitol, so
I loved being there. I mean, that's amazing. We came
for seven weeks and we ended up saying for seven months,
I mean, not all in studio A because it would
have you know, bankrupted.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
How much did you spend on?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, it was a lot. It was a lot, but
it was worth it because it was James Godson, you know,
who's such a brilliant drummer. And it was just nice
we all to be in that space and anything you
played in there you just played G on acoustic guitar thing. Yeah,
that's right, a song with just G. Everything sounded good.
I really liked it. I'd like to go again when
I was a bit more together, because we didn't quite
know what we're doing. I'd like to go when it

(02:01):
was like, we know what the songs are, let's work
on the arrangements, you know, rehearse and then you can
just be ready to go.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, a little room, I mean, I imagine there's some
inspiration in that building. It's at room for.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Just the actual sound, you know, space and then the
echo chamber. Yeah, it's really good. And we went into
the echo chamber and it still smells of paint. Wow,
from when it was painted.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
That can't be good, can it. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I guess that's probably lead paint or something. But where
the air didn't go anywhere, you know, just let you
just close the door. So yeah, amazing place.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
I've only been there a few times, but it's so yeah.
I still you know, I've lived here my whole life,
but every time I passed that building, isn't it? And
I always worry about now nowadays too, I worry about
it when I passed, like I feel some sort of
like hop you know, I doubt they're going to take
it down, but I hope, Yeah, I know that.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Do you universal still own it or is it owned
by someone else? And when I was working there, there
was a big fuss because they were making big condos nearby,
but it was disturbing all the underground stuff and that's
where the echo chambers are. They were like, what's it
going to do to like acoustics? But I think it's
probably fine.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
How's it been in town? It's so I forgot it
was Grammy.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's fun. I just won this
award at the Resonator Awards, which is for women who
produce an engineer. It's that organization called Move the Needle.
I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's
set up by Emily Lazarre. And so the main thing
they've done is sort of analyzed music. So they made
this analysis of everything that came out last year, and
of all the songs that came out last year and

(03:30):
all the records, there was only six just over six
percent that either had a woman producer or engineer. So
they're just looking at how they can kind of bring
equity to these organizations, including mentorships for young women. And
it's mostly coming out of school and you know, being
the person who trains with a mixed engineer, because that's

(03:51):
the seat you really want.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
To be in, right, That's how you get there.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
That's how you get experienced. You can learn all you
want to college, but when you're actually working on records
every single day and sitting in rooms and working with artists,
that's when you really become a master. So I think
they set up quite a few internships and there's camps,
and then there were loads of big writers there, like
Linda Perry was there. She's really good and she's really honest.

(04:15):
And then alanis Morrissette was winning an award, a kind
of trailblazer award, and she's such a big writer. Her
record Jagged Little Pill is the second biggest selling record
of all time?

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Which I didn't see. It's like thriller then Jagged Little Pill.
Whoa yeah, So when it was eighty eighty five million recorder,
I could move for that record, and obviously all over
the world eighty five million.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Records, five million thriller like below, just below thriller rilla.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, I was thinking, is it a Beatles record or
but yeah, it's thriller, my yeah, I guess it's like
it's also with how which chart you're looking at and
all that sort of stuff. But yeah, that's a massive.
But then they were just highlighting all these different engineers
and producers that I'd never heard of that were doing
big things. They're all sort of Grammy nominated this year.
And this woman who's kind of Jack Antonof's right hand

(05:03):
woman who does everything you know, yeah, exactly, Yeah, she's
the mixed engineer and he just won't work with anyone
Else's amazing.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Would you ever produce it? Would you ever work in
that capacity? Like help another artist?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, I just don't feel myself to be prolific
enough to kind of be a producer for other people.
But obviously I love producing my own music. I mean,
maybe in the.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Future I could do that.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
I just feel like it's not like, oh, I've got
ten records out and then I've got, you know, two
spare months to produce someone else. I feel like I'm
always just trying to like get it right for myself.
I did get asked recently to work with someone, and
you know, maybe at a different point in my career
I could do it. Or if I saw someone who thought, oh,
they're really brilliant and they you know, they need a

(05:46):
bit of help with the direction, and they were up
for it. I think it's hard sometimes an artist producer.
I've worked with artist producers before where they have a
really strong opinion of how it should be. Whereas I
feel like the best producers like we could do it
like this or this or this or this, I've got
all the different angles, Whereas I won't have loads of ideas.
It's just with my own music, I just think it

(06:07):
has to be this, you know direction.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
You know. It's funny. I re listened again to like
every record in chronological way. Every record is different. Yeah. Yeah,
so you at least got four different you know angles.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, yeah, No, I do really love it. I just
think it takes it takes me a long time, you know,
with Hero and the Tortoise or something.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Do you feel like you're always like writing.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I feel like I'm always in phases. So I think
with this record, I'm still very much in the phase
of tell the stories, communicate the stories. It feels much
bigger than me. It's really different from talking about your
own life compared to talking about these stories in this place,
and I feel like I'm in the business of connecting people.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I spoke to a radio presenter who's just over at
Tavis Smiley's radio station. But I remember specifically the interview
what we talked about. You know, we talked about Aretha
Franklin's Amazing Grace.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Grace read it for you, didn't.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
He He was like, do you know about this record?
And I said, yes, I love that record, and we
got to talk about that. You know, remember, so this
what's sacred, what spiritual, how people come out of the
church and they kind of punished for it to a
certain extent, or you know, you're really on your own,
But how can you ever separate music from spirituality and
all this?

Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's blowing my mind because that's actually the conversation. I
completely forgot about it. You said, that's how I discovered
that record.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Really from that conversation. Really, yeah, you guys talking about Wow.
So he was, yeah, that works then, right, he was
recommending it to me. But whoever was watching it, Yeah,
that's such a good album. And it's just a community
choir who were.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Excellent, insanely good.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, but you know they just live nearby and they
go to that church. Yeah, you know, it's not the
all star gospel choir of you know, it's just not
local people.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Speaking of like spiritual homes. Got to look through the book.
It's wild how Chicago became this kind of spiritual home.
It's a second home for either way you're I.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Mean, Chicago just became and still is for me. It's
kind of the center of the world for black stuff
for me. You know, in terms of thinking about the
huge migration that happened after the Civil War and after abolition,
where did the majority of people from the South want
to go? The enslaved people Obviously a lot of people

(08:26):
stayed in the South and really identified with those states
and being in the land and being farmers and being
close to nature. But so many people wanted to go
to Chicago, you know, the big city. So many people came,
and so you think of all those the mixture of
all those different cultures. I mean, I sort of think
it's all those different Africans that have lived in America

(08:49):
for generations, and all the cultures of the various states,
and even the cultures of the various plantations, you know,
impacting to what extent people were allowed freedom to move
around because of course some enslaved people were hired out,
you know, on different jobs. They drove the masses around,
you know, Dave the Potter who made pots for people

(09:10):
around around the plantation delivered them and so just what
that was like. And then coming to Chicago and then
what they brought with them, their traditions, their culture, their food.
But yeah, Chicago, I mean I feel like I knew
of Chicago as a you know, being a British person,
a European person, as like the mab the Mafia, Yeah,

(09:32):
the Windy City, you know, the musical Chicago. I didn't
think of it as being this center of Black thought
and space. You know, I certainly wouldn't have thought, oh,
Ebony Magazine was Chicago, and then was it? Yeah? Yeah,
So the headquarters of Ebony Magazine were in Chicago, and
John Johnson had this building that he bought and sort

(09:56):
of decked it out. You know. He became a really
wealthy man. The whole family were wealthy because they had
Jet and Ebony, Negro Digest and they would send them
all over the world. So he would go to all
these fancy places and all these bands, and they would
have all this European art on the walls. And he thought,
when I get my own place, I want it to
be contemporary Black artists and African pieces. So when you

(10:17):
see photographs of that building, the Johnson Publishing Building, every
floor had its own character. There was like swirly carpets
that had commissioned, the furniture was specially made. There was
the glass ash trays, and the art on the wall,
and the dog One statues and the Marlean statues. It
was like being in an art installation. And the photos

(10:40):
it also looked like something from two thousand and one,
a Space Odyssey, you know, just really like futuristic sixties.
They really heavily documented it. And it also was a
center for black Chicago. So when Muhammad Ali was in town,
he would go to the Johnson Building or when you
know sha Ka Khan or whoever was passing through, those
people were always the building was always fizzing with these entertainers.

(11:03):
So I really liked the idea of that. And then
just to know the library from that building had gone
to the Arts Bank, Wow, you know, and that's what
the library was. It had been people who had sent
their books to try and hope that Ebonie would review it,
the magazine would review it. So I just couldn't believe
the amount of literature in this library. It was a
new another look at Chicago for me.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
How much time have you spent there? Now?

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I spent loads of time though, because we you know,
obviously I went on that first visit and then I
came back and did a two week residency, which really
was immersive. It was freezing cold. It snowed on the
first day, and the snow didn't melt all the time
we were there. It never snowed again, but it was
banked up, you know, it was weak solid. It was
frozen in England, if you drive into a bank of snow,

(11:47):
you kind of you know, the car crushes the snow.
But in Chicago it was so frozen the car would
just kind of ramp up, like a four wheel drive
would just kind of ramp up on these huge snow drifts,
and it was freezing. You know, your eyes would freeze.
It was November or December when we went. But just
to be in that building and see people who'd come
out out and the cold to come to this building

(12:08):
because there was a dance event happening, because there was
a music event happening. Carolinia had put this tea party
and that had it had dance, she was singing, It
had a contemporary dance performance. It had this tea ceremony
that everyone engaged in. There was just always so much
going on. You know. There was this artist who was
commissioned once a week. He would just do these pop

(12:30):
ups in various parts of the building and you would
go and you wouldn't sure whether it's going to be
in the library or it's going to be in this
room or that room. You'd just be able to hear
the singing and kind of follow.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Hopefully.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
I just followed to where it was, and it felt
so special that all this was happening in this really
beautiful space.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
You mentioned in the book too by car Laney that
there was some like singing exercise.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, she is a I guess she's an artist, but
she also teaches vocals and they have this choir that
would meet every every week, and they were doing this
exercise where you moved around the building. We moved around
this one room and he had to make a single sound.
I can't remember if she gave you the sound or
that you just chose it. Maybe you just chose it,
but it was just, you know, one syllable, and you

(13:15):
had to have an object that you interacted with as
you walked around the space. So it might have been
that rocking chair, you know. That might have been my object.
So I had to make the sound as I went around,
and then each time I came to the object had
to interact with it. Maybe I sat in it, maybe
I climbed over it, maybe I crawled under it, maybe
I turned it upside down. But each time it was something.
And because you were so focused on this object and

(13:38):
doing your thing each time, the part of your brain
that was concentrating on the singing just became really loosened,
and so I found the things I was doing when
I eventually kind of checked back in with it, it
was really free and really loose, And of course everyone
else was making their sound as well, so we were
all kind of singing together as a choir, but not
really paying attention to each other consciously but unconsciously in

(14:01):
our music world, we were so just to hear, like
all these harmonies and sounds and rhythms and textures, and
you know, you'd be challenged, like the more weird someone
else's sound was, the more permission it gave you to
do your weird growl or screech or bark or whatever
it was, because it was all about what am I
going to do with this chair? Kind of fit my

(14:22):
body through that side. So it was really mind opening.
And I also remember saying I wish this was my life,
and then saying to myself, wait, this is my life.
So I felt like there was this huge contrast between
maybe the way I had thought about my music making practice,
which at that time had really become try and write

(14:45):
those hits, you know, sit down and really concentrate and
really make it happen, and really put this pressure on
yourself and.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Was that pressure coming from you?

Speaker 2 (14:52):
It didn't start off coming from me, but it was
very much absorbed by me. When I was making my
third record, when we came over to Capital in Los Angeles,
you know, bless a record label, I think they had
seen that I had been successful and they really wanted
it for me and for themselves again. So definitely with
that third record, I was kind of how can we

(15:14):
make this work? And you know, I'd had lots of
times of either playing people music had recorded, or sitting
there with my guitar in a room full of important
dudes who were all sort of older than me and
more powerful, who would just sort of say at the
end of a song they'd say, I just don't think
it's the first single. That's what I'd get all the time,

(15:36):
and so I would definitely be in that position of thinking, well,
what is this elusive song that's kind of kind of
smashed the doors in, and of course for me on
my first record that had been put your records on?

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And did you know when you wrote that, like, were
you like, oh, this is a single or no, no all?

Speaker 2 (15:52):
I mean, I guess I was definitely thinking the album
that I had written because everything else was done, I
was definitely thinking we need another kind of up tempo song,
so that's all we were thinking. Really was kind of
the pace. But it came about really easily and it
was really fun. It was really conversational and I liked it.
So it wasn't labored, whereas I think with my third

(16:12):
record it was just every try it just felt there
was so much pressure on it and bless the label again.
You know, the more time and money you sort of
spend on the thing really wanting to it's like gambling, right,
You just like keep putting the chips down.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
But at a certain point you're so for you have
so many chips in it's like.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Whoa, yeah, it going exactly. It got in a sort
of too big to Veil's situation for me where it's
just I just it just can't it just can't not
have an international megasmash on because it's taken so long
and it's got so much money, and you know, I'm
a people person. People would lose their jobs if you
don't do well at a certain point in a label.

(16:51):
You know, if someone's your guid at the label and
they've kept saying no She'll do it, you know, just
keep we just need another one hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's like the heads will roll, and head did roll.
So I just was always, you know, like lying in
bed with that kind of weight of responsibility, like I
am my failing pop star and my friends are losing
their jobs because of my inability to produce this thing.

(17:19):
They pull this thing out of the bag. So then yeah,
walking around with Kiara just singing these crazy bits of
music and being with other artists who I thought were brilliant,
I just thought, yeah, I really remember this thing of
music being freeing and playful and creative and pressureless and fun,
and I really want to get into that. I want

(17:40):
that to be my life. And then of course being
that was my life in Chicago and that building was
my life, and that led to a whole creative, free
project in Black Rainbows where I didn't feel the same
pressures as I did when I was making The Heart
Speaks and Whispers.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
So so that was the thought, like that I wish
that music making was fun.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, I wish I could sort of get back to
my first love without thinking this is really important, because
this is it's for your career and it's for the people,
you know's livelihood.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, that's scary. Yeah. I read a book on Moe
Austin or maybe it's about one the Warner Brothers label
and but had a lot to do about Mo Austin,
And there was a story about when they were starting
some A and R guy did a produced a Van
Dyke Parks record. I think it was like Van Dyke
Park's first record, and it's very experimental and very cool.

(18:35):
I think it was like the most most money they'd
ever spent on like a record too, and it didn't
sell at all, but it was very cool, and so
he kind of sheepishly went to like Mo and was like, hey, like,
you know, god of I fucked up, Like you know,
this was really expensive and it didn't sell, and apparently
Mo said, well, this is the album good and then
he was like yeah, it's amazing. He's like, that's all

(18:57):
we can do it? Yes, where's that kind of an
executive these days?

Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know, It's just it's an important thing to say,
I think to be fair to music executives. The way
that people buy music means that there is and the
money stream coming in in the same way, you know,
I always say to people with my first record, if
you wanted to hear, for example, like a star, you
could sit by the radio and hope it came one,
or you could go to the shop and buy the

(19:22):
CD or vinyl or in India tape. But now if
you want to hear a song, you can just stream it.
But of course the streaming the record doesn't bring that
much money to the artist. Yeah, there's a big gap
now between I love that song, I have to hear
it right now, or you could listen to it on YouTube,
which is completely free and none of the money goes
to artist.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
But is the money going to the label though?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Now the money is going to label. Yeah, but it's
the same amount of money going Maybe maybe it is,
and maybe they're sort of all good, but the artists aren't.
Like I would love to know more about it. I
feel like someone like Taylor Swift would know the breakdown.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
What she knows she's thinking account of everything that's going on.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, she's like, let me just rerecord all my records,
you know. But yeah, I think there is money somewhere,
but it's definitely not with the artist. I mean, I
feel really lucky because I got to have that phase.
But I think for new artists it can sometimes feel
for them that the making of the music is just
the start, and that if they can then spin their

(20:20):
good music into kind of making themselves a cool brand,
then maybe they can get the sponsorship that they need
to go on tour to Yeah. You know, so it's
really hard for artists. They're like, Okay, I've made a
great record, but now I need to I don't know,
get my Instagram figures up so that I can where
these trainers to pay to go on the road. I

(20:40):
don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
I have a friend who I didn't really know to
be a music person, but all of a sudden they
have a job now as an A and R person,
And they were on Instagram on their little story complaining
the video themselves, saying, you know, I'm spending all day
long going through music, and I'm founding artists and I
really like their music, and then I'm going to their

(21:02):
page and they're not promoting themselves. So why would I
invest in you if you really Oh.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Wait wait wait wait wait wait, yeah, that's the whole deal.
I'm going to a page and they're not. It's almost
as though they're spending all the time recording music, you know,
all the time sitting in front of a camera telling
us what shoes they're like, or like what products are
using there. Yeah, I think that's really crazy. And also
being a self publicist is in I feel it's kind

(21:30):
of counter to the feeling of being an artist, right.
The feeling of being an artist is like here I
am with my cup full. I humbly bring it to
the world as an offering. You know, it's being a promoter.
It's like I am the ship. You need to listen
to me. This is the best thing you've ever you know,

(21:50):
some aret takes out, like certain certain wedges of hip
hop like that have that.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Like you know that might have been a reserve space
for like the superstar at some point, like the Bruce Springsteen.
I can kind of be both the little.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Bit here I am the boss, yeah or whatever, or
like a Kanye is you know where he was at
one point with just like people love that kind of swagger.
But if you're just sitting in your room playing a
song on your acoustic guitar or you on your sampler
or whatever, you've got to just hope that someone's into it.
And I don't know, are we getting. Are we only
getting artists who have got a kind of a weird

(22:27):
distance between what they who they are and they making
and then who they are looking at themselves from the
outside thinking what are my marketable traits? Yeah, I just
feel like there's something really ill at ease with that
for me. But yeah, I know that that's how a
in our works. It's like they look at the numbers
and they say, well, if you haven't got enough followers,

(22:48):
then there must be something wrong. Instead of thinking we
can help you get followers, we can invest your platform. Yeah. Yeah,
so I think it's hard for new artists. But I mean,
obviously there are lots of great artists coming through, but
it's generally people who know how to get that ring
light on and get that content done, and that maybe

(23:10):
be prohibitive to other kinds of artists.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah. Yeah, after the break, we'll be back with more
of my conversation with Karen Bailey Ray. We're back with
Karen Bailey Ray in the book too. You say it's
been a real journey for me in music in terms
of what I've wanted to say and how much space
there is for it. Yeah, just struck me.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
What did you mean by that, I feel like, now
it's a revelation. There's as much space as you imagine
there to be if you can uncouple from the idea
that you're trying to make massive hit music, Like I
love this Andre three thousand record, which is just like
I really tried to make a hip hop record, but
I actually wanted to just sit cross legged and play

(23:57):
my bass clarinet.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Why shouldn't a music maker have that phase in their career,
especially someone who's already packed the dance floors and there's
already been the music you have to play your wedding
and your party and you're getting ready to go out.
It's like, why should we expect artists anything else of
artists except kind of evolution. The artists are meant to
be the weirdos, the strange ones, the ones who are

(24:19):
kind of like listening to the muse, the ones who
are a bit out there. And so I think there
is as much space as you imagine, and you can
say anything you imagine. You just have to not think
that people a large amount of people are going to
actually care, you know, but some people will care and
that will make a deep connection and that's really valuable.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
So how have you experienced, then, the reception of your
new album, Black Rainbow.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I mean, I've experienced it in a really profound and
rewarding way. I mean I think I've experienced it in
two ways, maybe three. One is actually live, you know,
going to a room, like traveling somewhere on a tour bus,
getting out of the bus, getting our stuff ready, getting
my clothes on, getting my makeup done, and then working
on to that stage and just being there and saying

(25:08):
I stories for you, I've got some things I want
to say, and seeing people react. You know, when we
first started our tour, our last US tour, it was
before the record had even come out, and I knew
I was playing the whole thing, so it was just
you know, you may have heard two songs off this
whole album, but here we are just bringing it to
you and this.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
We recorded it and everything.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
But yeah, I mean the album wasn't out yet, so
the tour went just ahead of when the album was out,
So I think maybe people would have heard if they
were really looking for it, they would have heard New
York Transit Queen and maybe Peach Velvet Sky, but nothing else.
And just to be able to play the songs and
see people's reaction and feel like you're in it with

(25:49):
people you know. To be able to play, he will
folly with his eyes and go from this kind of
dreamy section into the more disjointed music at the end
where I'm singing abby hit with my plum red lipstick,
my black hair kinking, my black skin gleaming, And just
to say that over and over again and to hear
people like start clapping and cheering and like standing up,

(26:10):
and just to feel that in real time that gave
me so much, you know, maybe think this is striking
a chord. That's all I want. All I want is
to connect with people. And I get that feeling in
a room of five hundred people, eight hundred people, one
thousand people, twelve hundred people, just small intimate rooms that
meant the world to me. Doing those places, or being

(26:32):
able to hear a song and you can hear a
pin drop, no one's talking, no one's at the bar,
you know, just a song they've never heard that meant
a lot. So that's one way I've received it. I
think another way is getting to talk to people like
yourself or been requested to talk with people like yourself,
that's meant a lot to me that the phone has
kept ringing, or that you know, say can you come

(26:53):
on this? Can you come on this? Can you come
in this? Can you can you talk? Can you talk?
That's been amazing just to say like, oh, it has
connected in certain places. That means a world. And then yeah,
the same getting to be on radio and play the
music and then have like the feedback come through, or
you know, we just did a session for Joe Wiley
and she's on Radio two in the UK and I
had played for her in two thousand and five. I mean,

(27:15):
I've been back since, but just to think, gosh, I've
been in this space many times, but this is doing
a really different thing. And to have people, you know,
phoning in.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Does it feel like a first record again for you
in a way like does it feel it does.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Feel like a first record? Yeah? And it also feels
I think because it's different to what people might have expected.
It feels like not cheeky but risky. You know, it
feels like a risky thing to do good.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Even in a meta way as a listener of your
music beyond like just really liking the set of music.
What's exciting about it? For me is seeing someone that's
been in your life for as long as you've been
in our lives take that risk. It's thrilling and it
makes you know myself. I'm sure other people too who
listen like, yeah, fuck it, I want to try something

(28:01):
different because it's really out there and it's really fucking good.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks, It's just been good for me.
I just feel like, what do I want to do
with my time here? I don't want to forensically pour
over what I've done before and try and make it
enough the same that it's going to catch those people.
And that's why I tried to always talk to the
label people about the people who bought my first record.
They're not even the same now, Like who a listener

(28:28):
was in two thousand and six, it's not the same
as who they are in twenty twenty four. So it's
like even your audience has changed in terms of who
they are.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Way so I would have been like sixteen whenever came out.
I loved it. Now I'm an almost thirty five year
old dad of two girls whatever, but like listening to
it makes me feel sixteen again because it makes me excited.
It's like something new you know.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
So I think it's sort of patronizing to kind of
imagine that your listeners, you know, everyone's kind of in
a Belgia, are like just waiting for the same thing again.
I mean, who even wants the same to buy a
same record even if I made it carbon copy? You know,
like the Disney films that they do where it's like
it's The Little Mermaid but it's live action, but it's
exactly the same, but it's different, but it's you know,
I wouldn't. So it's like, how can you ever compete

(29:16):
with the really you know, the thing that you already
did and it's just Better's like, make a new movie.
See what that's like? Yeah, the Little Moment will still exist.
I mean I did actually like the Little Moment, but
as an example of the whole way that things are
being kind of remade, you know, why not just do

(29:37):
something new? Well, the reason is because it's more of
a risk, But what the benefit is that it's new
art in the world, which is good for everybody.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, you do take your time, and you alluded to
that a bit earlier. Do you feel that like you've
found a rhythm in a way that will allow things
to come a little easier.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yes, I definitely feel that. And I think part of
the reason the third album took so long is because
it was actually a combination of songs that weren't rejected
by either myself or a team, you know, So I
could have written three records in that space. You know,
there were definitely songs that were just like a wounded
bird that you just kind of lay by the side

(30:18):
of the road and throw out something else. So I
think I will never go back to that place. However,
I make my records now, even whether it's with a
major label or not. I like the thing of making
the record without anyone. I really enjoyed that this time,
so you may and that's how did my first record.
So you make it and then you sort of take
it around like you're a traveling salesperson, you know, you

(30:39):
say it's this, it's weird, it's different, is it good?
Is it bad? And some people say no, and then
some people say yes. And then when you find someone
who says yes and you can work from there. I
think that's a way that I want to carry on
doing it. And you know, having you know, made a
studio and invest made those kind of investments I think
that it's possible. So yeah, I'm just trying to work
out what to do next.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Have you heard from labels, either your old.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well, I've heard from different people who are at the
different labels, and it's been really positive. I mean I
haven't heard from any sort of like the giants of
any of the labels, and you know, you think, I
wonder if they have you even heard it or not?
But or even like my old manager, my first manager
is like, I'm so happy you made this. It really
sounds like you and it sounds like you're having a
good time and that means a lot to me that
it's come from historic me as well, that's not like

(31:25):
a reinventor. Yea.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I read in the book that you felt like
even the way you wrote the songs was different, I
mean basing this rather than the songs coming from some
internal sense of how you're feeling or something that's happened
in your life, You're you're pulling the inspiration for the
songs from outside sources, from these items you discovered at

(31:47):
the archive in Chicago. Did you enjoy writing that way
and is that something you keep doing as well?

Speaker 2 (31:52):
I really enjoyed writing that way, because I really didn't
try to write that way. And I think I hear
about people who I don't know write books or write films,
or they say I was on the tube and I
overheard so and so, and a lot of songwriters work
like that as well. Right, So, I think because I
wasn't trying to write songs when I was looking at
that stuff, you know, that first day, I was just
curious or nose even just pulling open drawers and like that,

(32:17):
like certain things would interest me, certain things wouldn't. And
I guess I was drawn to my own things that
fascinate me.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
I looked at a lot of women. I looked at children,
I looked at particular eras of America. I looked for beauty,
you know. I was really interested in the glamour and
fashion of ebony from the forties and fifties. You know,
I hadn't seen imagery of like black women in elegance
and gloves and pillbox hats, and I hadn't seen enough

(32:46):
pictures like that.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Seen more of that, because every time it's flashed back
to the fifties with black America, it's the black and
white dogs.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
I mean, that's what I mean, so I think I
had seen so much, Yeah, vintage blackness that was really
framed around civil rights struggle or violent oppression. They were
the images that went all over the world for all
the reasons. But I think what that does is it
makes blackness into a kind of perpetual struggle, you know,

(33:19):
like the work of being black in the fifties is
to struggle. And I remember talking to Miss Audrey Smaltz,
who was Miss New York Transit Queen nineteen fifty three.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
That's a real thing.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, there was a competition and it was Miss New
York Transit. So that's what was the competition that she won,
and that's how I found her. It was the black
equivalent of Miss Subways. When I left the Arts Bank,
I was googling like Mistransit, Mistransit. All I could have
found was these two articles that were in Ebony magazine,
so it was the only source on the entire Internet.
But I would keep coming across Miss Subways, which was

(33:51):
all of these kind of Doris Day types, you know,
sort of posing and their photos will be plastered all
over the tube, and so you could vote for who
you thought was Miss Subway of any particular year, and
I think the prize was, you know, free ride on
the subway or whatever for the years. So a lot
of these women, you know there were secretary, they were teachers,
they were you know, they were going to their work,

(34:12):
and they you know, beautiful women and immaculately dressed. But
the competition, even if though it was in New York,
the competition wasn't open to black women in the fifties
in New York. So the black transit workers of New
York got together and made Miss Transit. And that's why
we see Audrey Smaltz. I think she's a fourth winner
ever of Miss Transit. But yeah, because of that and

(34:32):
because of ebony, and because someone put it on the internet,
I was able to find out about it and actually
find Audrey Smaltz, you know, because she became a very
famous woman in fashion and media.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Was that the impetus four or I mean imagine she
was probably glamorous before, if that's how that's how she won.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, she wasn't. She was seventeen and she was an
art student and she had entered this beauty competition because
it lists her as being I mean, I don't know
feet and inches because we're metric in England. It's five
eleven one one in shorter of six foot. Yeah, okay,
but she is actually six foot but they thought it
wasn't feminine enough. Sa, So it's like she's five to

(35:10):
eleven but she was. Yeah, it didn't be intimidated fellas.
But yeah, she's she was the six foots of Amazonian beauty.
But she won the competition. I mean obviously because of
her looks, but also she had this fold. She was
an art student, so she drew and so that was her.
You know, you had to show your kind of studies
or special interests. And really I liked the idea of that.

(35:31):
But yeah, going back to when you think, you close
your eyes and think of black American in the fifties
and the sixties, it is kind of a police dog.
So seeing all this glamor and seeing all this beauty.
But I said to Audrey Smult's, you know, what was
it like growing up in Harlem in the in the
forties the fifties, you know, was racism? I kind of

(35:53):
was it an everyday you know struggle with me being
this you know, black English girl. She's like, honey, no,
She's like, I've lived in Harlem. We were fantastic we
lived in that. I didn't know it was the projects.
We thought we were muck aty Mac. She said, we
had a live in the basement, we had black artists
on the wall, and she was painting this segregated world

(36:15):
of Harlem, saying our teachers were black, our doctors were black,
our bankers were black, our lawyers were black. We lived
in this relatively safe space where actually our every day
was not thinking about the struggle. We were just getting
on with our lives. And that really blew my mind
to think about these some black spaces were safe to

(36:38):
the extent that it wasn't the defining factor of a
person's life. You know. They went to finishing school. She
went to Miss Celia Devors finishing school. She just painted
this picture which made me realize that we're always overlaying
the kind of political struggle on top of the everyday
lives of black people at that time. That's why I
loved Ebony magazine because it's of course it's talking about politics,

(37:00):
but it's also talking about the black families that are
putting on an art expission in the house, and it's
took about the Black doctrine Canada and it's talking about
hem lengths and wigs and makeup and nail varnish and
where you can buy the best powder deodron, just the
real everyday things of black life. So I just, I
mean ebony was just this amazing, glamorous, brilliant sauce for me,

(37:23):
it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I' have to go back and look at some of
the sometimes I'm like Google books. I'll go back to
some old stuff and look at those. But I should
pick them up at like a store and look at them.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah. Yeah, there's still a few around because I got
one last time I was in Chicago, which on that tour,
you know, in November, I managed to pick one up
and then now it's mine.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
It's like nineteen sixty five and front covers gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
That's really a real piece of history.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Does every song on the album correspond to some thing
or things in the archive?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, So every song on the record is directly influenced
by an object or a group of objects, or the
events in that arts Bank. So that song put it
down comes from those experiences like with Carolinia or this
dance party that happened in Arts Bank where you had
to write down your woes and put them in this
big vessel on the way into the party. And I

(38:15):
love the party because it was a proper mixture of
the hip art crowd who liked the esta and admire
his work. He's internationally collected, is represented by White Cube
and so those people and then local community people who
you know that is the South side of Chicago, so
it's an underserved community, is the current title. And then

(38:37):
just like black hip uptown people, people from the university.
So it was a real mixture when you looked around
the room and everyone was just dancing to this FRANKI
Knuckles archive for like three four hours, sweating it out
in this building, you know, like freezing outside of condensation
on the walls on the inside, and then they set
fire to all the woes at the end. And the

(38:58):
thing that I had put in there, the burden that
I had been carrying, I never experienced it the same
after that event, you know, like the actual cathartic thing
of dancing it out, being in that building, being around
those people burning it. That was it, you know, done
for me. So I'm a real believer in dancing out
your woes, and that's what came into that song. You know,

(39:19):
when I've gathered up all my woes, I put it down.
I'm like a burden of all my woes and put
it down, and then you know, too much inside. I
got to dance it out and then into the end,
you know, I feel so free.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I put it down in hindsight. Was the work? Was
it small in hindsight or was it something it was big?

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Definitely, Yeah, it was of getting in the way. It
was blocking What then became all this new stuff, you know,
just a perception of myself. And I just recently went
to this meditation class as well, and they talked about
a Hindu god whose work is to slice through the
false narratives that you have of yourself. And I remember,

(39:55):
I think she's called Shapti, and I'm thinking, yeah, I
want that, you know, just just like burn away all
the stuff that's not relevant.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
After this last break, we'll be back with the rest
of my conversation with Krin Bailey Ray. Here's the rest
of my conversation with Grinn Bailey Ray. What about the
song Urthline? What would inspire that Earthlings?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
I really, I mean, there was a lot of stuff
in the record of what's time and where are we?
So are we here now but with the future for
our ancestors, and we're sort of in communication with them.
I think that, you know, you can reach backwards, you
can kind of tell them where you are and how
far we've come, and that we're safe. I don't know,

(40:44):
I really feel that, and I've felt that a lot
after I'd had my children as well, felt really connected
to the kind of line going far, far back. But
I think with the earth things, I thought a lot
about utopias. You know, in the library, there's a big
conversation going on over about two hundred and fifty years
between black thinkers. You know, a classic example would be

(41:04):
an early Malcolm X and Martin Luther King position versus separatism.
You know, we find ourselves to be here. This similation
argument says, here we are outside of West Africa, in America,
in Europe, in South America, black people, but we find

(41:28):
ourselves alongside our neighbor. We are human and they are human.
Let's find a way to live together and move forward
from this moment. The separatist argument says, we are here
in this hostile environment, how can we possibly survive? The
only way to survive is to turn inwards and separate
ourselves from everyone else. Whether that's a geographical place like

(41:52):
Marcus Garvey back to Africa, or whether that's a spiritual
idea like the separatist communities that sprung up in the
sixties and seventies, or whether it's economically when people talk
about trading only withinside the community. All these different ideas
and back and forth in the library. Before emancipation and
then from there on, there were different Black thinkers, some

(42:14):
saying we can make it work. We're all brothers and sisters,
and some saying no, we have to be separate. And
so Earthlings is looking at utopia and looking at all
these different attempts at utopia, like the Black pioneers going
west and making their own all black towns, some of
which were really successful, some of which still exist, some
of which were crushed and destroyed, like Greenwood, which was

(42:38):
the first incident of fire bombing that happened.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Is not what is Greenwood.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Greenwood was an all black town that existed that was
a very wealthy town, and there was an incident where
a black man was accused of interacting with a white
woman in a lift, a sexual aggression towards this white woman,
and a lynch mob came for this man into Greenwood

(43:03):
where he lived, and the Greenwood citizens defended him, said
they were not going to hand him over to you
false accusation, and the rumors grew and developed, and eventually
the area of Greenwood was firebombed by the people who
were outside of the community, and it's the first incident
of fire bombing used in America, these agricultural planes. So

(43:28):
I think there are some utopias which worked, some didn't.
But I think the song Earthlings is about how to
make utopia, sort of knowing that it's impossible, but it's asking,
you know, can we eat pineapples in the sun? Can
we dig our gardens and live? Can we find work
and time to dance? You know? How much do we

(43:49):
need to work to survive? How much freedom is possible
in the world? How much can we share our resources
and all have enough? So I was kind of I
am really interested in those.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Questions, pragmatic view of utopia. It's like, you know, it
would be nice.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
The basics, well it's the basis, but he asked us questions.
So I'm the optimist who says, you know, I know
it won't be long, like we can make this happen.
And then I know other people who are close to
the song who say when they imagine it, they kind
of imagine it coming through the speakers on the sort
of spaceship where you know, all the astronauts have died

(44:25):
and they just kind of floating around and nothingness, you know,
like we we didn't do it, We missed our chance.
We're on the planet and the planet's destroyed, you know,
by it essentially our own selfishness, however that comes out.
You know, selfishness is manifesting in racism, doesn't it The
separation of ourselves from other people, the imagination that they're
not other people. Yeah, we can't because then when we

(44:48):
don't have to imagine them as people, then we don't
have to share anything with them, land, food, resources, love,
and so yeah, that song. I'm an optimist. That's what
I have to be that to get up in the morning.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
I like that. It's more and more of like a
like a Curtis.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Mayfield, Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, there is a train coming, you know.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah, exactly, we can get on board. We can all
get in. The don't all he needs faith? You know,
you don't need a ticket. Yeah, really, I like that.
It's a kind of I don't know, I guess for
Curtis Mayfield, it's a specifically you know, Christian gospel message.
But I think it has the resonance, you know, so
what's the train? The train is kind of psychological. It's

(45:27):
a moment, it's consciousness. So I'm optimistic in that way.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
That's cool. I want to ask you about another song.
But before that, they reminded him talking about Curtis reminded
me that you did an song with Al Green. I
don't know if you were actually with Al Green.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, I was with that. I was with Al Green.
It's terrifying, tell me, okay, it was. It was a questlove.
It was a mer who asked me to do it.
I can't remember if i'd even I think i'd met him.
Then I had met him. We met a few things,
and maybe a Music Cares thing and a Grammy thing,
and obviously it's a mea and it's the roots and

(46:03):
he was producing this al Green Records. So it came
to me like, oh, they want you to write a
song with Al Green, and I thought okay. So I
had to fly to New York and walk into the
room and there's al Green and he says like, yeah,
you know, it's really softly spoken, and he's like, you know,
don't you worry about anything? You know when al Gren
is in the room. You know, when al Green is here,

(46:24):
there's all everything's fine, and he talks about himself in
the third person?

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Does have glasses? Aren't too? In the studio?

Speaker 2 (46:31):
I can't remember if you had glasses or it. I
remember thinking, you know, I'd worked on some chords at
home because I'm not the best guitarist, and also I thought,
you know, I'm really actually going to be there with
al Green. I don't want to be scratching my head.
So we'd worked, you know, on these chords for Take
Your Time.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
How did you present the chords to it?

Speaker 2 (46:51):
I was just played them. We know, I had a
Spanish guitar, and I was like, you know, mister al Green,
are you feeling these?

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Like?

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Do you like this? James Poiser was there. He obviously
plays with the roots, and he's a brilliant organist and
keep up player of all kinds and obviously questlove. So
we were the band kind of jamming this song and
I sang a few lines.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
He sang some lines and how did the words come thready?

Speaker 2 (47:17):
I didn't have the words already. No, So it ended
up being a kind of I guess. You know, it's
a duet, but there's this big age difference between us,
so it wasn't like we were in love with each other.
It's more that we were reflecting on you know, do
you remember when we used to take our time, you know,
I'd write you a letter and you'd or we'd stay
up all night, or you know, now it seems everything's

(47:39):
going too fast, and so it's kind of both of
us reflecting on longing for a time when I guess
love and communication could unravel in this real slow longing,
which you know so much about Algreen's music, that that
feeling of hot, damp southern air and love and waiting.
You know, it's it's so amazing and it doesn't take

(48:05):
much to kind of set it on fire. And so
it's all about the anticipation with his music, and so, yeah,
I can't believe that it came together, and I remember
just sort of thinking, I believe this is really happening.
It's really al Green and of couest Of was brilliant
obviously on the session, he got the different people and
I think John Legend was on that album as well,

(48:25):
So there was all these kind of you felt like
everybody in this room knows what they're doing, even if
I don't, and I just have to you know. It's
like a sink or swim.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, was like you just don't worry about anything, you know,
when Al Green is here, we can just relax. And
you know he's a reverend, so his actual pastor. And
then years later I went to his church. Did you
that's my next I mean, you got, yeah, You've got
to go because it's a real church in a real
building and people are there with their baby, women are

(48:57):
fanning themselves. I didn't know it's going to be there.
I think he just that is his job. So he's there,
you know, if he's not on tour, he's just in
the church leading the service, you know, and he speaks.
There's a you know when those organists who like plays
behind the sermon and swells and the passionate partson and
he holds it down. And then he said, Karin, would
you like to come up and sing something? I was singing,

(49:18):
Oh my gosh, you know, this is the real gospel church.
My Christian background is not gospel music. It's like a
white Baptist church. You know, someone with a guitar and
a rainbow guitar strap and someone playing a tambourine. That
is what I know, you know. So it's like my
black church experience comes from listening to records, it doesn't
come from singing pews. So I was like, oh, was

(49:39):
it gonna ask me? But it was amazing grace, which
I of course know, so yeah, and I remember thinking,
don't try and don't try and make all these crazy runs.
Just just sing this song. And I think they thought
they maybe you couldn't do that. So it was really
it was really simple how he made it. But I
wasn't about to be like if you major, you know,

(50:02):
I just I was happy I sang my song. You know,
it was a church. I wasn't trying to dazzle. But yeah,
I also didn't fall on my face, which is good.
But yeah, out in the bag at this point, I'll
just stick to it, I know.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
You know what's surprised me?

Speaker 2 (50:24):
I was.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
I think about this kind of often, and going back
to Aretha was like Ariana Grande Atrea's funeral.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Is that what happened. I didn't watch Aretha's funeral, but occasionally, okay,
more than occasionally, just sort of here and Aretha Franklin vocal.
I can't remember what it was the other day, and
I was just like, holy ship, she's totally unparalleled, a
total master in her own lane. And just the ability
to control, you know, it's like it's delicate, is burbling.

(50:55):
You know what it was? It was her and Smoking
Robinson singing Babby duet version. It's a duet that they
just did totally spontaneously, and you can tell it is
because Smokey sort of waits for the first note before
he was a harmony and it was on Soul Train.
You've got to watch it. I'm going to yeah, and

(51:16):
she sat seeing and he said, oh, we should have
been a duo and he says, it's not too late, baby,
and I hadn't quite got them right in time. So
it's like Smokey's a bit older than her, and he
kind of looks older. He's wearing a jumper and I
don't know, he might be like forty, and she looks
like she's I don't know, twenty nine or something, and
she's just like her skin's all just like beautiful and chotchy,

(51:37):
and she just it's amazing seeing like a woman and she's,
you know, a serious statued woman. And then Smoky looks
kind of small next to her, and she's the piano
player and he's kind of perched on the end of
the thing. It's just like something you maybe hadn't even
seen in terms of gender.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
On TV reversal. Yeah, you're right, Oh, that version as like,
holy shit, her piano playing.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Just everything, and like just thinking of her being in church,
you know, with a hair pulled back, playing behind her father,
who was like a superstar Cel Franklin, wasn't he, which
you sort of forget about that. She really came up
through gospel music and kind of the business of gospel music, right,
people travel far and white to see him. His daughter

(52:22):
that could also sing was kind of the side side
showed to him. He was the main artist. And just
to think coming up under that training just you cannot
go wrong from there. But yet I think Areatha is
probably the absolute pinnacle, you know, the top, and you
always feel like you feel like she's there, you know that, Oh,
she's reached kind of the top of her range and

(52:43):
then the show was just like seventeen more, you know,
like hold tones from there, just like she just shifts
a gear. Yeah, so maybe, yeah. I always worry wonder
I shouldn't say I worried. I wonder about the later
part of her career, And it sort of makes me
feel sad for music that in a way, like in

(53:04):
the eighties it was sort of less room for a singer.
There was less room for I don't know, late phrasing
or taking your time or space, like the arrangements became
really dense, and the only type of voice that could
sit on top of it would be like a sort
of Michael Jackson's voice. You know, there's loads of air
in there. It's really like course Michael stabs through important times.

(53:26):
But I felt like in the eighties there wasn't really
the room in production in hip music. I always feel
sad when music kind of takes a turn and it
means like an artist just gets sort of chucked away,
like how it was for Bill Withers, kind of so
are you going to do disco? Bill?

Speaker 1 (53:42):
No?

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Okay, Well, you know by and then you don't really
hear his records, you know, into the nineties, and obviously
then there's a cover of Lovely Day and he's sort
of back out.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
That's again another thing I think of as artist, you know,
was Bill Withers' label saying, we'll look how well Stevie's doing,
will look how well this person's doing, and you're I mean,
Live from Carnegie Hall didn't have a good reception, and
it's one of my favorite records of all time.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
That's an insane right, yeah, but it was.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
It wasn't well received because my dad's got these magazines
and it wasn't sort of well reviewed, you know. Oh
you know, it's old material and it didn't have the
spot I was thinking it all.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
But it's elevating all the songs that if they get
to all the songs, you know, but just I don't
want to say better, but it's just.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Another talking about grandma's hands for longer than the length
of Grandma's hands. But that's the version I played to
my kids, and they know that speaking part as well
as they know the song, you know, and it's like
I love that old lady, Love that old lady. Just
his rap he's talking is it's as great as a song.

(54:52):
What a good person, what a good human? So that's
the other thing I think of as an artist is
you can be in a moment and think, oh, well,
my work is not as well known or as popular
as X, Y Z, A, B, C, D and E.
That's not why you're doing your thing. You're doing your
thing because you're doing your And I think there's always time.
You know, sometimes people might not get into a record

(55:13):
till the person's died, but then it's it's made, it's there.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Do you think of yourself as a singer.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
I think of myself as I guess I think of
myself as a singer, and I think of myself as
a music maker. You know, I like my voice. I
don't know. I remember doing loads of award shows and
stuff with my first record and thinking, oh, it's funny
when you're divorced from like, it's not your song, it's
not your arrangement, it's not your production. I'm not playing
my guitar, it's not with my band, you know. I'd

(55:41):
feel really like, well, what can I bring to this?
They literally want me to sort of put a dress
on and heels and just kind of go. But I
did find that I had something to say, so yeah,
I do see myself as a singer.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
What were the best versions of that in your mind?

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Oh gosh, I mean I got to sing in a
Wreatha Franklin song. I got to say, I'm trying to
think angel. It was a music Cares was honoring a
reutha Franklin. So although I never got to meet her,
I was kind of like I was next to her,
you know, in the red carpet. So she had this
white fur coat on this like it was kind of
split low so you can see her, you know, a

(56:18):
beautiful figure. And she played a few songs at the
end of the night and that was amazing. But yeah,
I remember singing I just played. It was Abe Laboreal
Junior and La Boreal Senior and so yeah, he plays
with mcartney and then I think his dad plays guitar,
so that even just the band was ridiculous. And I

(56:39):
think I had my guitar. I don't even know I did,
but I just was playing the cruds really simply. But yeah,
getting to do that and knowing she was there that
that was really amazing.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
And it worked. Do you feel like it worked? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (56:52):
It worked. It worked, and I heard she liked it,
you know, So that's all you can. I think a
lot of people were really trying to like sang like
out sing Aretha kind of thing, like in Aretha Franklin tribute.
But I think everyone was just trying to shine. My
way of shining was like trying not to do that.
Don't try to do that thing, just trying you know,
this is a good song I was sort of honoring

(57:14):
as a songwriters.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Yeah that's great. Yeah cool.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Well, thanks so much, Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Thanks Bim Bailey Ray for meeting up in La to
chat about her book Reflections Refractions at the Stony Allen
Arts Bank with us. You can hear a playlist of
our favorite songs from Krim Daily Ray at broken Record
podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find
all of our new episodes. You can follow us on

(57:44):
Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited
by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and
Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday. Broken Record is
a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin
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(58:05):
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I'm justin Richmond.