After 10 years in musical seclusion due to family turmoil, Anita Baker is returning to the spotlight. The Grammy-winning R&B songstress has signed a deal with Blue Note Records to produce at least two albums, and expects to release her first project before the end of the year.

“I’m so excited,” the singer told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday. “I do see that there is a demand for what I do, and my fans are still there.”

With a deep, sensuous voice that recalled Sarah Vaughan and a classic soul sound, Baker became one of R&B’s premier artists in the late ’80s and early ’90s with hits like “Sweet Love,” “Rapture” and “Giving You the Best That I Got.”

But she dropped off the music scene nearly a decade ago after releasing the album “Rhythm of Love” in 1994. At the time, Baker, who is married, had two young sons (now 10 and 11 years old); a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s; and a father dying of bone cancer.

“I couldn’t focus on the music at all. I tried, but each time I tried, that door was closed to me,” she said. “My parents were dying, and I couldn’t write.”

So she took a break to take care of her family in Detroit, where she lives. Baker never considered hiring anyone to take care of her family so she could continue her career.

“She took care of me, she didn’t hand me off to someone else,” Baker said of her mother. “I’m really happy in retrospect that I did it that way, because she breathed her last in my arms.”

Baker’s father died in 1998; her mother died in 2000. After her mother’s death, she felt could pursue her career again.

“It was almost like I was given permission when she passed.”

Baker had a deal a couple of years ago with Atlantic Records after being wooed by its legendary founder, Ahmet Ertegun, but an album never materialized. “I couldn’t fulfill my obligations to him and I really regret that, because he’s a wonderful man,” she says.

Baker began touring, but she doubted whether people would buy CDs of her smooth, adult R&B in today’s marketplace.

“For the past five years I had been channel surfing and all you see is MTV and kids. The demographics became very very young. I figured I was relic and my time has passed. And I figured I had something to offer in the jazz arena,” Baker said.

But when she contacted Bruce Lundvall, head of Blue Note Records, about recording a jazz album, he told her he’d be interested in an R&B album from her as well.

“She is one of the great artists, no question about it,” Lundvall told the AP. “There’s not another voice out there like hers, it’s instantly recognizable.”

Baker has already written songs for her new album, which she says “has the same elements of R&B, jazz and gospel influences throughout, because that’s just me.”

But Baker says she’s interested in working with new artists, such as Alicia Keys or bluesy guitarist Robert Randolph, who wowed the Grammy audience last month with his performance.

Baker says she’s not going to conform to today’s musical scene: “Even at the height of my career, I was always not quite with it, I was always off doing my own thing.”

And she says fan response to her recent concert performances show there’s still an interest in her own style.

“I didn’t know that anybody would give a hoot,” she laughed. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”

Credit: AP