Corinne Bailey Rae Put Your Records On Video

Is there such a thing as too much good press? Corinne Bailey Rae, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter from Leeds, has to date released one EP but, upon playing only her second London gig (out of a total of eight), has been voted 'The Sound of 2006' in a BBC poll of music experts amid claims that her style resembles a cross between Billie Holiday and Macy Gray.

All this acclaim might be a little overwhelming for Bailey Rae, whose slight, shy presence on the cramped stage suggested that she has some way to go before she feels able to command her audience like a woman who knows her time has come. Her voice - perhaps due to understandable nerves - wobbled and cracked but, when fully unleashed, filled the room like a whisky-scented genie.

Bailey Rae's new single, 'Put Your Records On', got her dancing without raising her eyes from the floor, and she looked constantly to her two sisters who whooped along at the side of the stage. Her blend of old-school soul and KT Tunstall-style guitar balladry is pleasant but rarely enchanting; her band played with enthusiasm but almost too smoothly, as if aiming to please an invisible Radio 2 controller.

For now, it seems Bailey Rae is required - or has chosen - to stick firmly to the middle ground: songs like 'Breathless' and 'Enchantment' are so inoffensive you wonder quite how those comparisons to a hard-living icon such as Holiday could come about. But one song, the truly enchanting 'Like a Star', left an impression that her true sound - the music she would love to make if not for the interference of producers or chart-worriers - is, if not gritty or grimy, then at least heart-baringly honest. Real soul, in other words.

Born in Leeds, Bailey Rae was introduced to songwriting by a youth group leader at her local church.

She formed indie group Helen, who became fixtures on the scene along with a pre-fame Kaiser Chiefs.

Even GMTV are on to her: 'The music radiates from the inside and draws you inexorably into her world.'

She says of the hype: 'It's weird. I haven't sold any records.'

Watch Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On video and tell us what you think.