What is Corrine Bailey Rae!

Touring the world has its ups and downs.  Well, the ups far out measure the downs, it’s just that the television programming when you’re in the hotels can sometimes be a crapshoot.  In some places throughout Europe the only salvation might be some Euro league basketball (if your timing is right), otherwise as far as sports go, you’ll get a cricket match and if you’ve ever experienced over 10 minutes of that… man, a real doozy.  The other saving grace sometimes is music video programming.  I just love watching the european made videos. The videos created by european artist and video directors trump the American  made videos, hands down.   They just have such artistic merit..  Anyway, it must have been 2006 and I’m sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Europe watching music videos, by default (a pleasant one, however) and that’s when I saw her.

Corinne Bailey Rae sends chills through me.  I first saw the “Put Your Records on” video several months before it was released in the states and I knew she was the truth.  My musical acumen is impeccable (in my famous relative’s voice) and so is my musical taste.  Corrine Bailey Rae is one of the artist that I know I’m gonna buy her project, sight unseen, because I know she’s gonna deliver quality, and she’s ever evolving.

A couple of years ago, while in London for some shows I was walking through the bar area of the hotel (the K West in Shepherds Bush) and there she was, sitting at the bar enjoying her beverage, a few laughs and some conversation with friends.  I made my way over to her and introduced myself and found her smile to be as genuine as on the videos and her spirit to be as authentic as her lyrics.  I found that she was a real person just like me, The World Famous Tony Williams (because you never know), wow!

Last Wednesday, when my Kool kid, Jehireh and her best friend Miyah, asked if I’d drive them to the concert I didn’t think twice.  This night, however, was a slightly different experience.   We had no all-access passes.  There was no hanging out in backstage green rooms or hanging out on the tour bus in the alley.  We walked up to the box office at the Granada Theater in Dallas and bought tickets like real people.  We entered the auditorium and walked through the packed general admission crowd  and made our way all the way to the front of the stage, dead center.  And when the time came for her to hit the stage, we danced, sang, forgot about the rest of the world and took photographs with our camera phones for almost two hours.  We were real people just like Corrine Bailey Rae.

By the way if you happen to run in C. B. Rae, tell her that The World Famous Tony Williams is looking for her, I’d love to work with her…