It’s the kind of music you want to hear when you are sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon and you need to take a musical cruise. You’d pop in her CD, the same way you would a Sade, or Della Manley.

Acclaimed Grammy Award-nominated English singer and songwriter, Corinne Bailey Rae released her self-titled debut album in February 2006. Incidentally, the singer, born in Leeds to an English mother and a West Indian father, was named the number one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics.

And they predicted right! Rae’s is the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one.

Her voice cannot be described with one word. You want to say, she sounds a little like Billy Holiday, Erika Badu, Macy Gray and Jill Scott, all rolled into one. But that doesn’t quite describe her sound. One critic got it down to a science when he described her “Like A Star” single as “a slice of sublime Billie Holiday blues delivered with a voice that pins you, in the softest but most persuasive of ways, to the wall; a voice that floats up effortlessly, full of caress, subtlety and the very purest quality.”

The songbird who like many singers, started in church said it was the singing that she enjoyed the most. Soon she was strumming an electric guitar and listening to the likes of Rock gods Led Zeppelin which was a major influence for the 26 year-old. But her training in the classical violin, an English literature degree and the verve to make music have not been lost on her songs, which she writes.

Her almost sedentary approach to life in her music without the excitement of the high notes and the strained emotions leaves her sounding fresh, sincere, delicate, and possessing a spirit that draws you away from the ordinary. It’s easy to see how her music is reminiscent of say a Norah Jones, perhaps the only comparable peer.

The crooner says her album is a little bit of everything, incorporating the kooky, with the soulful and acoustic. It talks about love, and relationships without the trite and usual, according to Bob Marley, “Baby, baby, I love you”. She writes about the aspects of relationships that aren’t really discussed in love songs.

And, at 26, she is sure that this is what she wants to do for the rest of her life. So keep listening and she’ll keep singing.