Black Country blues star Joanne Shaw Taylor talks ahead of Birmingham show

Needless to say, the music fans and blues-heads in the crowd already knew the answer. It was Joanne Shaw Taylor. The whisky-voiced singer. The midas-touch guitar heroine. The heart-on-sleeve songwriter.

Since then, Shaw Taylor has made her mark as the first lady of British blues.

She's six albums into her career and divides her time between Detroit, in Michigan, and Birmingham, in the West Midlands. She grew up in Wednesbury, in the Black Country, and started playing blues after listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins and Jimi Hendrix.

She never imagined her career would scale the peaks that it has and tomorrow she'll enjoy a triumphant homecoming when she headlines Birmingham's Town Hall.

Back in the day, Joanne was just an ordinary Black Country schoolgirl rifling her father's record collection and falling for albums by Vaughan, Collins and Hendrix. Guitars were 'lying around the house', she recalls, and at 13, she'd picked up her first electric and at 14, she defied her teachers to play The Marquee and Ronnie Scott's.

"I was never meant to be a singer," she modestly said in a recent interview. "I've always had a deep voice. I think it came from my influences as a kid. Joanne left school at 16 and ran straight into her big break, as a twist of fate directed her demo tape into the hands of Eurythmics icon Dave Stewart after a charity gig.

Stewart recalls that 'she made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end', and his phone-call the following day proved the start of a lasting friendship, with Joanne seeking his advice and even accompanying his DUP supergroup across Europe in 2002.

Stewart offered Joanne her first deal, but when the label ran into financial trouble, it gave her the chance to regroup and work on her songwriting. Thus far, original material had perhaps been a neglected side of her talent but once the dam broke, things moved fast. In 2008, Ruf won the rush for Joanne's signature, and soon she was working with veteran producer Jim Gaines on the songs that became debut album White Sugar.

When White Sugar dropped the following year, taking in gems like Bones and Kiss The Ground Goodbye, the rock press crowned it Blues Album of the Month. Soon enough, the buzz was building, with Joanne both raising her profile supporting behemoths like Black Country Communion, and honing her craft on 2010's Diamonds In The Dirt.

This second album was another step up, from the explosive lead breaks on Can't Keep Living Like This to the heavier influence of her adopted Detroit hometown on the crunching country-blues of Dead And Gone.

Since then, she's broken into the US market, beaten the stereotypes of her age and gender, and won the respect of the giants.

"I've loved every album and recording experience I've had to date for many different reasons," reflects Joanne.

By Andy Richardson