Corinne proudly flying the flag for soul of the North

Looking back almost 20 years to when she embarked on her solo career, Corinne Bailey Rae remembers that the idea of touring around the world had never really occurred to her.

- By John Blow

"I hadn't looked far ahead," she said. "When I was just starting out and I had my first record, I didn't really realise, I didn't understand, I guess, that artists toured and toured in other countries. I had been on one or two maybe airplanes when my first record came out and I was 26, so I didn't really have much of a global perspective."

Once her own music was out there, the world in turn embraced her too. Perhaps nowhere more than the USAa thrilling prospect because it is "the home of so much music that I actually really love and I deeply, deeply influenced by and then to meet artists that were, are, my heroes," says Corinne, 46.

To collaborate with them-acts such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Marcus Miller, Al Green and John Legend - felt like a "huge affirmation".