Corinne Bailey Rae

TORONTO - She thinks for a moment. If Corinne Bailey Rae was going to make anyone a mixed tape, the Leeds-born 27-year-old singer-songwriter says a lot of unlikely artists would be sharing the bill.

"Wow, it'd be really broad," she says over tea in the lounge of her downtown Toronto hotel. "I'd be putting on some Isaac Brothers; definitely Jimi Hendrix; Billie Holliday; Erykah Badu; Veruca Salt; Led Zeppelin; some Neptunes (produced) stuff, like 'Drop It Like It's Hot' and 'Signs;' and Lenny Kravitz. There'd be more too."

Something of an anomaly, Bailey Rae's self-titled debut has been a bona fide success, riding her best new act win at last month's Mojo Awards, and the European popularity of her first single - the sultrily buoyant "Put Your Records On" - all the way to North American record shelves this past June.

Already double-platinum in her home country, entering the UK Album Chart at Number One this past spring, Bailey Rae, whose silky voice has drawn comparisons to everyone from Norah Jones to Billie Holliday to Erykah Badu, has held firm in SoundScan's Top 50 since the album's release two months ago. Appearances already bagged with Jay Leno and Good Morning America, "Put Your Records On," Bailey Rae's jubilant anthem that trumpets being true to who you are, has been in heavy rotation on MuchMoreMusic.

"In 'Put Your Records On' I was trying to say something positive about the fact that it's OK to be different and not fit in," she says, nodding her curly head of hair. "It's about being able to find an identity in music. That's something I've really loved."

Further proof that Bailey Rae's debut is one of the year's most startlingly honest, shines through on the liltingly Bjork-ish, "Like A Star," the Sade-like ache of "Till It Happens To You" and the soulful Alicia Keys-y number, "Seasons Change."

"I really like songs that put their fingers on emotions that you didn't know you felt," she says, taking a sip of tea. "Sometimes, I listen to music thinking I feel alright, and a couple of tracks in I find myself really choked.

"The first Bill Withers album ('Just As I Am') has some really heavy songs on it and when I first listened to it, the stuff just uncovered this place that hurt. So, I tried to do that a little bit on my record. I wanted you to find the places, the layers underneath that you didn't know about, which were kind of hurting.

"Music's got a real healing power, but I'm also trying to be honest. Not everything turns out perfectly." She pauses for a moment to have another sip, and survey a nearby television crew that's setting up to interview her next, then adds: "But love's still something worth trying for."

Meaty stuff for a young artist who just a few years ago was studying literature at Leeds University by day, while working in a local jazz club at night. Then the penny drops: Bailey Rae's current soulful incarnation isn't her first whirl with a guitar and mic.

"No, no," she laughs. "I was in a indie rock band when I was 15. We were called Helen."

Inspired by female rock outfits like Veruca Salt and L7, Bailey Rae says that though the group was "edgier and more aggressive" than the blissful whispers that line her debut, Helen's where she first got in touch with her emotional sensibility.

"I feel like we were writing about the same kinds of things I am now. And towards the end, the music we were playing began to reflect a wider range of emotions including love and hope and loss. All those emotions you need to go through and work out, they were there in the music."

It was really her gig as a hatcheck girl in a local jazz club that got the fresh-faced young woman to change her sounds in mid-flight.

"When I started working at the jazz and soul club, that really influenced the kind of music I'm making now."

Given the chance to hop onstage and sing once and awhile, new ideas started to form and soon after Bailey Rae found herself in a nearby studio.

"I feel like it's just a progression. Really it's just a broadening up of the things I actually like. I still love guitar music and heavy music. I don't feel like I left rock to do this."

Stepping onstage during a show in Toronto last month, Bailey Rae demonstrated as much, showing her old rock 'n' roll stripes with a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You."

"I absolutely adored Robert Plant when I was younger," she says with a grin.

In the midst of a North American tour that wraps in Minneapolis next week, Bailey Rae says she's enjoyed the intimacy of her gigs stateside. "I love being able to actually see the people," she says, leaning in conspiratorially. "I can look into people's eyes and feel connections happening throughout the room.

"When I'm onstage, I'm trying to invite the audience into my little world," she continues giddily. "And although the stories are personal, I've tried to make them open enough for people to put their own stories into them."

So if it was bands like Zeppelin, and vocalists like Louise Post and Nina Gordon, who helped Bailey Rae think about the kind of artist she wanted to be all those years ago, who's her inspiration nowadays?

"I admire certain artists for the freedom that they've got," she says, her thick Yorkshire accent piercing the din of travellers now congregating in the hotel's lobby, just outside the lounge.

"Someone like Bjork I think has got an incredible musical freedom because she's got a bunch of people that are really into her just for her. Her voice, persona, production, writing style; she can make a record that's all vocals ('Medulla') or she can make a big band-type record ('Gling-Glo') and people love it all the same.

"In the future," she says, eyebrows raised, "hopefully I can try different things and not be tied down to a certain style. I mean, the experiences I've had, other people have had. So, if I can make listeners feel like it's their world I'm talking about too, well then..."

Corinne Bailey Rae returns to Toronto's Mod Club Theatre for a sold-out show this Sunday, August 27.