Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Jack White, Jerry Seinfeld, the Jonas Brothers and others will pay tribute to Paul McCartney at the White House on June 2 when the ex-Beatle is feted as the latest recipient of the Library of Congress George Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

The performance will be hosted by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and also will include performances by Faith Hill, Herbie Hancock, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dave Grohl and McCartney himself during a presentation that will be recorded for airing July 28 on PBS stations.

McCartney is the third recipient of the Gershwin prize since its inception in 2007 to recognize “the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world’s culture.” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member follows Paul Simon and Wonder as the first two honorees.

Just one question: Jerry Seinfeld -- what's up with that?

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Paul McCartney at the Hollywood Bowl in March. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Corinne Bailey Rae did something brave and completely natural after the accidental death of her husband, Jason Rae, in 2008. She kept making music.

The young singer-songwriter was riding a gentle wave of success in the wake of her self-titled 2006 debut, which won critical accolades, sold well and received multiple honors, including three Grammy nominations. She took the time to stretch out on her follow-up, but then catastrophe struck in the form of an accidental overdose Jason ingested on a night out with friends. That event necessarily shifted the tone and focus of "The Sea," the album Rae finally completed and brought to the marketplace in January of this year.

Rae visited Los Angeles in February, and I sat down with her to discuss her new music and where her career might go next. I found her as thoughtful and quick to laugh as I had the first time I interviewed her, in 2007. The video above is a portion of our conversation.

On Tuesday at Vibiana in downtown L.A., Rae will begin her first North American tour since the release of "The Sea" with a benefit concert for KCRW-FM (89.9), the radio station that gave her her first Stateside airplay. She'll return a couple of weeks later to perform at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio.

-- Ann Powers

The singer-songwriter reaches into the depth of her grief and delivers a moving, if not seminal, album.

 
 Anyone who's been through a serious loss knows about the baffling part: After it's over, you are still you. You are you, plus the loss, plus the pain and confusion the loss causes. The process of healing isn't really a matter of "getting over it" -- taking it in is what's necessary, incorporating what's been felt and learned and figuring out how to be the person you've always been is what's different now.

"The Sea," Corinne Bailey Rae's sometimes hard to absorb but ultimately deeply rewarding second album, is about that process. Rae's husband, saxophonist Jason Rae, accidentally overdosed on methadone and alcohol in March 2008. Rae grieved for him by doing nothing for months, then returned to making music. 

Though she's known for the kind of delicacy that's often dismissed as "lite" -- her 2006 self-titled debut was a careful exploration of the feminine psyche set within arrangements that melded Laurel Canyon folk with early-1970s boho soul -- Rae searches for the pinpricks and love sighs that intensify gentle emotions. On "The Sea," her carefulness complicates what might have been a blunt expression of pain.