“IT MUST run in my veins” says singer/songwriter Grainne Duffy when she is talking about the Blues.

Growing up in Castleblayney, Ireland, you would think that Memphis Blues would be the furthest thing from influencing a musical career, but the guitarist feels the Blues and the Irish have always had a connection.

“In Ireland we have had a strange relationship with the Blues over here,” Duffy tells The Gazette.

“But for me it was introduced to me through my sister, she had a good taste in music and listening to lots of Fleetwood Mac records. It was from there that I would start singing with my sisters, just little covers songs but that was my start into music.”

Since picking up a guitar Duffy has risen to become an in-demand performer across the globe, but it was not a chosen path, it was more one that she fell into.

She added: “I used to find it hard to find where my voice fits and what is my identity and when you do your first gig you are doing lots of covers so I didn’t really know where I wanted to go.

“But Blues just sort of fell into my lap and listening to things like Tony McPhee and gave me a good basis for what I wanted to do.”

Having played in covers bands, “I started out singing with my sisters, we were like a rock version of The Corrs,” it was Duffy’s debut album Out of the Dark which led to her to perform at the world-famous Glastonbury Festival as well as travel the world.

But again this was not something the Blues singer had planned.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” added Duffy.

“I was lucky enough to be in a band with these guys who started writing their own material so it gave me a structure of how to do things.

“Paul Sherry booked me time in the studio, and two days before we sat down and started writing thing so it was very daunting.

“We were woke up the morning I was meant to start recording and wrote one of the the songs literally a few hours before I was meant to go into the studio. I was so naive.”

“It was never I want to be a solo artist it was more a case of lets go record and see what happens but it was I started getting booked so I just became a solo artist.”

It is this type of luck which has seen Duffy travel the world and currently be on the road with Paul Carrack, which is where she will be supporting him at The Anvil on Friday, 9 March.

For more information and tickets visit anvilarts.org.uk.