Corinne Bailey Rae at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, review

By Hazel Sheffield Published: 6:39PM GMT twenty-five February 2010

Virtuosic talent: Corinne Bailey Rae in unison Photo: TOM WATKINS/REX

MANY MUSICIANS try to develop on their second record; couple of have shift so unconditionally forced on them as Corinne Bailey Rae. The 26-year-old from Leeds, who shot to celebrity in 2006 with a handful of spacious cocktail songs and a gloriously soulful voice, had her universe incited upside down in 2008, following the genocide of her father from an random overdose. In the issue of the tragedy, returning to the girlish cocktail that precipitated her success was impossible. While pique still permeated her opening at Shepherds Bush, it was her mutation in to a jazz vocalist of virtuosic intensity that majority tender the fabricated audience.

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She non-stop the show alone, an electric guitar slung turn impossibly skinny, unclothed shoulders for the sad Are You Here. It rang out tentatively in the outrageous theatre. While Bailey Rae is comparatively new to the theatre again following an 18-month hiatus, she neednt have disturbed about her reception.

Her fans were forever supportive, and rapturous acclaim greeted her as the mood lightened in to the infrequent despondency of Closer.

"I chose this for the initial singular off the new manuscript since I longed for people to know it would be a opposite sort of album," she explained prior to rising in to Id Do It All Again, a strain she wrote after a brawl with her late husband, switching in between enthusiasm and despair. With her band, a pick up of astoundingly gifted musicians who pennyless in to outspoken part-harmony and cut to solos with mental power ease, these differences done themselves known. Bailey Rae inhabits the layered sounds of her new compositions, her sealed eyes and lifted arms testifying to their healing properties.

Live, a little of the comparison marks valid majority revealing. A delivery of her strike single, the once untroubled Like a Star, weighed complicated with dolour and, though the opening was spotless, she paused to pull the behind of her palm opposite her eyes afterwards. Many in the assembly did the same.

The area trafficked was majority strong on an additional first-album hit, Put Your Records On, that seemed forged and lost between most some-more accomplished, newer fare.

Few could have likely in 2006 that Bailey Rae would go over being one of this decades some-more endearing womanlike singer-songwriters. Now, she outclasses her younger peers by sidestepping the constraints of pop. A reggae-infused version of the Flamingos I Only Have Eyes For You invited dusty, blue tones, whilst a Jimi Hendrix cover called for tougher soulfulness suggestive of Lauryn Hill. In song, she becomes a undoubted superstar, nonetheless when the song shuts off, awkwardness still glimmers in her bony frame. Bailey Rae is still anticipating her feet again. When shes ready, the universe awaits.