Corrinne May

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Crayons and Crooked Lines

‘Crooked Lines’ is the title of Corrinne May’s 5th and latest album, a title that came to her as she watched her daughter drawing with crayons one afternoon.

“She was drawing what seemed to me to be random, crooked lines all over the drawing paper, but she was telling me exactly what she was drawing- namely, a butterfly. And I thought to myself, perhaps that’s how it is in life. Life is never a journey that goes in a straight line. Just like sailing, we reach our destination with ‘zig-zaggedness’, with crooked lines.”

“There is an ancient Portuguese proverb that says ‘God writes straight with crooked lines’ and I think it’s such a lovely saying,” says Corrinne, “because it expresses the faith that even if something seems like a ‘crooked line’ in our lives, God is able to use that for our good.”

“For truly, it’s the detours of our lives, the crooked, whimsical, circular paths we take that mould and fashion us. Oftentimes, it’s only in looking back at the path we’ve taken that we can truly appreciate why certain things had to happen in our lives, to bring us to our present circumstance.”

It’s been five years since the release of her last album ‘Beautiful Seed’ and in that time, Corrinne has indeed taken a detour from her usual comfort zone. She’s spent much of her last few years focused on being a mother to her almost 3 year old daughter Claire.

“Motherhood has been a surprising journey full of twists and turns and changes. Claire’s growing up so fast…I just don’t want to miss a single moment of this little person blossoming before my eyes.”

“I love being a mother. It’s humbling, it’s grandiose, it’s scary, it’s exhilarating, it’s peaceful, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, bar none.”

The album opens with a lullaby, “In My Arms”, the very first song that Corrinne wrote for the album.

“I spent a lot of time in the first few months of Claire’s life, just holding her and nursing her till the wee hours of the morning. And in the stillness of the night, the idea for this song came to me. It still brings me back to those moments, where the nights were sweet and long and filled with the scent of milk and the sound of Claire’s breathing while I held her in my arms and soothed her to sleep.”

Other songs on the 13-song album include “When I Close My Eyes”, a song inspired by an iPad app. Corrinne explains: “Claire has this iPad app where a little girl imagines doing these extraordinary things whenever she closes her eyes, things like reading her favourite book in space or being the fastest runner in the world. I figured I’d do my own version of what I’d love to see if I closed my eyes to dream.”

The song also features an unusual blend of music instrumentation. “I heard, in my mind, a gospel choir singing back-up on the chorus and also had in mind the Irish whistle for the instrumental solo. It’s not everyday that these two elements get thrown into the same song, but I’m glad that it turned out just as I’d hoped.”

In a departure from her usual piano-based songs, the guitar figures more prominently on her latest album.

“I missed playing my guitar,” muses Corrinne, “so once I picked it up again, all these songs that had been waiting around in my head to be played started introducing themselves and begging to be written.”

“It helped that I had the support of an artist endorsement by Taylor Guitars. I love their guitars and just having a lovely guitar to play with helps inspire new songs!”

The result is an album of songs that is just a tad more boisterous, more playful, more rhythmically-driven than Corrinne’s previous work ‘Beautiful Seed’. The 13-song album also features Corrinne’s favourite musicians, some who have been playing with her since her days at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“Eric Holden and Craig Macintyre laid down the bass and drum tracks for the songs in an epic 13 hour recording session! They were such troopers.”

Corrinne was also thrilled to have Erig Rigler, who recorded the beautiful instrumental solos on the soundtracks to the movies ‘Titanic’ and ‘Braveheart’, play the Irish Whistle on two songs in the album.

“I’m really proud of the work we put in to make this album.” says Corrinne. “It took some time to put together, but it’s all been worth it.”

Crooked Lines was released on 16th March 2012 in Singapore, with releases in other countries to follow.

Corrinne May – the story so far…

Born in Singapore, but now based in Los Angeles, Corrinne May didn’t always think she was going to be a musician. It wasn’t exactly looked upon as an ideal career to most practical-minded Singaporeans, who oftentimes steer their children towards careers in law, medicine or business.

Then again, perhaps her mother had an inkling. Named after her mother’s favourite song ‘Corinna, Corinna’, she trained in classical piano from the age of 5 and won her first songwriting competition at 15, modeling her earliest songs after popular songs in the 80’s such as those by The Carpenters, U2, Hall and Oates and Abba. She grew up a self-confessed tomboy, choosing to join the cadet corps over the school choir. There, she earned her marksmanship on the AR-15 rifle and spent hours with her fellow platoon-mates shouting military commands and marching up and down her school’s parade square. She was also a school prefect at the academically elite, all-girl’s Raffles Girls Secondary School, and regularly sent her fellow students to detention over too-short skirt hemlines or too-long fingernails.

Thankfully, that soon gave way to more artistic pursuits. She honed her love for Shakespeare with an honours degree in English Literature at the National University of Singapore, and pursued her passion for songwriting and film-scoring at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating with a Bachelor of Music. She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue her musical aspirations.

She released her debut album Corrinne May in 2001 and the album featured the ballad “If You Didn’t Love Me”, co-written with iconic songwriters Carole King and Carole Bayer Sager. The album also earned her the “Kerrville New Folk Award” among 600 contenders at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, TX and the Performing Songwriter Magazine praised the album, calling it a “touching and enchanting record” and likening May’s voice to “the haunting otherworldliness of artists like Sarah McLachlan and Sting with the open veracity of Joni Mitchell”.

The album was subsequently re-titled Fly Away and released in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore and the title track’s music video was featured on MTV Asia. Her song ‘Journey’ was covered by popular Mandarin singers Angela Zhang and Gigi Leung and became a hit after being featured as a theme song in the Taiwanese drama ‘Dolphin Bay Lovers.’

She followed that with Safe in a Crazy World in 2005 and the songs ‘Everything in Its Time’ (co-written with Carole Bayer Sager) and ‘Save Me’ were featured in the Singapore television series ‘Chase’ which helped to propel the album to the top of the Singapore charts for two weeks. As a result of the album’s success, she had a string of sold-out concerts at the Esplanade Concert Hall and recital halls in Singapore.

2006 saw the release of the Christmas record The Gift which featured a song ‘The Answer’. The song featured lyrics by Corrinne May, set to the much beloved tune of ‘Jupiter’ from Gustav Holst ‘The Planets’ suite. The album also featured an acapella music setting to the traditional prayer ‘Hail Mary’. The Christmas concert held in conjunction with the album’s release saw Corrinne performing on stage with a 24-piece choir, an 8-piece string ensemble and a full band. The concert, staged at the Esplanade Concert Hall, was a sold-out success.

Beautiful Seed released by Warner Music Singapore in August 2007 achieved platinum status in Singapore, with sales exceeding 17,000 to date, after achieving gold status within its first month. After debuting the material from the album at a sold-out concert in Singapore’s 1600-seat University Cultural Center Hall in August, May embarked on her very first tour of Japan, doing in-store shows to standing room only crowds at Tower Records locations in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka. She also debuted the material for her Los Angeles fans in a full-band concert at the 800-seater Aratani Theatre, and performed the songs at the Hotel Café, Genghis Cohen and Molly Malones.

In recognition of her contributions to the Singapore and regional music scenes, Corrinne received the Young Composer of the Year award and Wings of Excellence award from COMPASS, the performing rights society of Singapore, in 2007. She was also honoured by her alumni, the National University of Singapore who presented her with the ‘Outstanding Young Alumni Award’, and she represented Singapore at the MIDEM conference showcase in Cannes, France in 2008.

In 2010, Corrinne May was commissioned to write the National Day Theme Song for Singapore’s National Day. She sang her composition ‘Song For Singapore’ at the Padang in front of a 40,ooo strong crowd and the song was also telecast in a live broadcast to the whole nation.

She also sang at a fundraising concert at the Divine Mercy Church to raise funds for Caritas, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church in Singapore and sang in a concert for the International Volunteers Day at the Marina Barrage in December 2010.

More recently, Corrinne wrote the song ‘Beautiful Life’ in conjunction with the theme of the Esplanade’s 10th anniversary, a ‘celebration of life’ and debuted the song at the Esplanade outdoor theatre in October 2011 and at the live broadcast of the Singapore Radio Awards in November 2011. The song is the first single from her new album ‘Crooked Lines' which is currently enjoying extensive airplay on Class 95 FM in Singapore.

Crooked Lines, Corrinne’s 5th album was released on 16th March 2012 in Singapore, with releases in other countries to follow.