SHE has become synonymous with a new wave of blues music and has become one of the UK’s greatest exports to the American dominated scene.

But Joanne Shaw Taylor says she is just thankful to have the opportunity to do what she loves all over the world. The singer and guitarist has seized every opportunity since being discovered by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics when she was 16.

Joanne, whose latest album Wild entered the UK album charts at number 20, now splits her time between Birmingham and Detroit to help manage her hectic touring schedule.

And as she prepares to come to the Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival in Colne over the August Bank Holiday, she reflected on what it is like to be called the ‘the new face of the blues’ by Blues Matters magazine and a ‘superstar in waiting’ by American blues rock legend Joe Bonamassa.

“It’s really sweet,” said Joanne.

“I don’t think I’m the new face of blues but it’s cool to be part of the scene.

“I went to see Marcus King the other night. He’s a great young guy coming forward. I think because it is still quite a niche genre there is a feeling of camaraderie between the artists from the scene.

“Occasionally I’ve started getting recognised when I’m out at gigs and stuff like that. That’s kind of cool as it shows I’ve been working hard to get my music out there. That’s really nice to see.”

Joanne always felt like becoming a musician was the natural thing to do because she came from a musical family.

“You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a guitar in our house,” she said. “My dad and my older brother played guitar.

“I just grew up in a musical and artistic household really. I was really lucky with my parents. They pushed me to pursue my passions. I just assumed it was something I was meant to do.”

So while her school friends were listening to ‘N Sync and Britney Spears, Joanne’s hero was Stevie Ray Vaughan.

She said: “I didn’t really tell anyone I played guitar apart from a couple of close friends. They weren’t exposed to that kind of music but when I tried to explain what blues was they ended up coming to a couple of gigs with me in the early days.

“Now they’ve discovered that love of blues and rock for themselves.”

A bit of luck meant that Joanne also got her big break very early on.

She was invited to tour Europe with Dave Stewart’s supergroup, D.U.P. It came about after a breast cancer fundraiser in Birmingham that Joanne performed at as her mum had the disease at the time.

She added: “I’d just done my GCSEs and I’d done a little demo over the summer holidays. Dave’s friend was there and he passed it on to Dave and the next thing I knew I was on a train to London pretty much the next day.

“He’s a lovely guy. He’s always been really good with me. Dave’s a crazy genius and has a great sense of humour too.”

By the time Joanne’s debut album, White Sugar, came out she had beaten the stereotypes of her age and gender to be welcomed by the notoriously hard-to-crack US market.

She said: “Most people were really supportive but there was a certain novelty to my act. At the time I thought that was my age but I think a lot of it was down to being female. I think doors opened earlier for me because of the novelty value but it was a lot harder to keep those doors open.

“The crowds would come to see me but I had to work hard to keep them there and make them want to come back. One of my favourite quotes by Charlotte Whitton is ‘Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good’. It is a male dominated world and that applies to the music business too.

“But the thing is when you’re that age you’re a bit fearless. I didn’t take no for an answer and thought I knew best. I just went for it.”

Now 32. Joanne she said performing in the US has lived up to her dreams of doing just that from when she was a kid.

“It’s kind of crazy here,” she said. “It’s everything I wanted it to be from when I was growing up in Birmingham imagining what it would be like. You get the places with the guitars on the walls and the ones like Hard Rock Cafe.

“But you also get the venues with sawdust on the floor with people chain-smoking and wearing cowboy boots.”

So quite a different experience to playing guitar for Annie Lennox at the Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace then?

“When you put it like that I’ve had a lot of contrasts in my career,” she said.

That was the same bizarre day that Joanne – accidentally – turned Stevie Wonder into a fan.

She added: “My pedal board malfunctioned and I ended up playing a very stripped down guitar solo.

“Stevie Wonder sent his drum tech to find me to tell me he loved my ‘clean, bluesy guitar tone’. So that worked out very well for me…”

Joanne Shaw Taylor headlines the Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival, Colne, on Friday, August 25. The festival runs until Sunday, August 27 and features the likes of Janiva Magness, King King, Ian Siegal and Lucky Peterson. Details from the festival box office on 01282 861888 or www.bluesfestival.co.uk