SOUL queen Beverley Knight is taking her tour to Bournemouth Pavilion on Tuesday.

The tour comes ahead of a busy time for the West End singing star, following which she will be releasing her new album Soulsville and returning to star in smash hit musical The Bodyguard.

Soulsville was recorded in the legendary Royal Studios in Memphis. It showcases Britain’s first lady of soul commanding the Reverend Al Green’s microphone, backed by veteran members of the Memphis Hi rhythm section, kicking up blues, soul and R’n’B grooves steeped in the city’s rich musical heritage but given a very Beverley makeover.

“It was hallowed ground,” says Beverley. “I knew we could create something really special here.”

The first time she set foot in Memphis, Beverley knew she had to record there. The British star originally travelled to the Tennessee city in 2014 to research her Olivier nominated role in West End production Memphis, The Musical. “I’ve been all over the US, in all the big music cities, but I wasn’t prepared for the way Memphis would hit me,” recalls Knight. “The weight of the history is all around you.”

Memphis affected Beverley deeply and profoundly, musically, emotionally and politically. “I was raised on those records, listening to them on the radio and just all around me growing up in Wolverhampton. Without even really understanding that it all came from a world away, they spoke to me in my world too.”

Renowned as the Home of the Blues and Birthplace of Rock’n’Roll, the city of BB King and Elvis Presley, Memphis is also celebrated for its distinctly southern soul brew. In the 60s and 70s, Stax and Hi records was home to Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Booker T and Isaac Hayes and more. “Going into Sun studios, where pictures of Howling Wolf and Elvis still hang, you know there’s magic in the air. And walking through the doors of Royal Studios, it was like a sacred place, as if nothing had ever been touched. I don’t think it had even been hovered since the 70’s! The wires on the floor, the amps and valves, it was exactly the same as when Al Green and Ann Peebles used to record there.”

Outside a different kind of life was going on, and that struck Beverley too. “It’s in the middle of a poor, broke-down, neglected black area. People packing guns, it’s high crime. And through the doors, there’s this incredible energy being stirred up by great musicians.” From the bars of Beale Street to the churches of the Memphis suburbs, the midlands girl felt a profound and surprising connection. “Even getting on one of those Mississippi paddle steamboats, I couldn’t help thinking that 200 years ago someone who looked just like me would have been transported down the river to pick cotton. Things like this kept flooding into my mind.” The news at the time was filled with stories of the deaths of young black men at the hands of US police. “All over the states, the same issues were flaring up that had been happening in Memphis when all this incredible music was first being made.” Memphis is home to the National Civil Rights Museum based at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. “Stepping into the room where Dr King was murdered, the atmosphere changes, Mahalia Jackson is singing Precious Lord Take My Hand, and it shook me, it really shook me. I’m a black woman. My parents came from Jamaica to England rather than the US, otherwise I might have been raised in this madness, where people were treated as very separate and very unequal. I left there and I don’t think I have ever been the same really. That was a catalyst for writing this album. And that’s why I had to go back to Memphis to record it.”

The city was the trigger for Beverley to write some of her most personal and heartfelt songs.

There was never any intention to make an explicit Memphis homage. Rather, she wanted to tap into the feelings the environment stirred in her, and embrace its very particular energy. A three time Mobo award winner, Beverley wrote a clutch of new songs with trusted collaborators including Jimmy Hogarth (Adele, Duffy) and Matty Benbrook (Paolo Nutini).

The Middle Of Love, the first single, is a feisty, horn laden, upbeat blast about fighting for a love gone stale. “When I write, it’s just me and one other instrument, a guitar or piano. I thought 12 bar blues would be a good starting point because that is where it all began, and it allows you to dig into the huge treasure that is Memphis soul.”

All Things Must Change is a punchy, optimistic string-laden anthem looking for a silver lining in troubled times. “I was upset about the racial tension going on in the States and here too, the suspicion people seem to hold each other in at the moment, to the backdrop of news about terrorism, war and migration. I grew up in church, which is quite evident in the way I sing, and there’s a passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes which talks about there a time for everything, a time to reap and a time to sow, and I took that theme to say things are crazy right now but, just like the seasons, things must change.” I Won’t Be Looking Back is a trembling, powerful gospel ballad” explaining what it feels like to be someone who can be rejected just for the way you look.” It draws on Beverley’s memories of being turned away from a restaurant in Spain because of her skin colour. “I’m at a place now where I’m not as angry about it. I can look back and say the people who behave like that will be part of our past because the world is moving forward.” Sitting On The Edge is a stark, tender ballad written about the death of her father in 2010. “That was a tough one to write, I won’t lie. But there were things I had to say. You don’t know when your time’s going to be up. Live while you’ve got life to live and if you love somebody tell them because we are all sitting on the edge of life and we don’t know when we going to topple off.” When I See you Again is an uplifting song remembering an absent friend and looking forward to the day they are reunited. “That’s another song inspired by my friend Tyrone (who died of AIDS 12 years ago) but I’m in a place now where I can be in a happy place when I remember him.”

When she had a clutch of songs, she returned in February 2016 to Willie Mitchell’s legendary Royal studio, where his son Boo Mitchell still manages and engineers. Veterans of Al Green’s surviving band were assembled alongside younger musicians, all under the guidance of producer Justin Stanley (Beck, Eric Clapton, Prince). “I wanted a contemporary R&B edge but with absolute soul integrity,” she insists. “Justin really bought that together, any hint of pastiche would have been the album killer for me.” The group set up as live, all playing together in the same room, with Beverley laying down her vocals in “the Al Green booth”. The whole thing was recorded in the space of a week. “It was done as it would have been done back in the day,” she explains. “with the spontaneity and energy that happens between a group of musicians and singers playing in the moment that you can’t replicate. Even if it’s a bit wonky, it’s about capturing the spirit and energy that occurs in the room.”

The plan was to make an album of entirely original material but once on this hallowed ground, Beverley couldn’t resist covering some of her favourite Memphis songs. She digs into a dirty, bluesy version of Hound Dog, taking the Elvis Presley rock’n’roll classic back to its Big Mama Thornton roots and featuring long time mate Jools Holland. “I loved singing the ass off that.” She covers Anne Peebles I Can’t Stand The Rain, which was recorded in the same room in 1973, and they even dug out Willie Mitchell’s old electric timbale to recreate the distinctive raindrop motif. Beverley reinterpreted Aretha Franklin’s Don’t Play That Song For Me as a 6/8 ballad. “Aretha’s one of my idols but I wouldn’t try and sing it like her, because she’s Aretha and no one else is. It’s a really sad song but the way she does it is quite jaunty, so I thought it would be interesting to slow it right down, bring the heartbreak out, so it hits you right in the solar plexus. I know that feeling. I’ve been there.” And she had the huge pleasure and privilege of recording a new version of Hold On I’m Coming with Sam Moore, of Sam & Dave. “I wanted a song with energy, something up-tempo that people would know. Sam has always done it with Dave, who sadly is no longer with us, so we reached out to him and he was up for it. His voice has got softer with age but the melody is still very much there and we really work well together. The main body of the song finishes and we just vamp, it turned into a fantastic jam. What you hear is pure vibes.”

Beverley Knight has proven herself to be one of Britain’s most enduring and versatile stars. Raised in a Wolverhampton by Jamaican immigrant parents, much of her childhood was spent singing in Gospel church. She rose in the 90’s as a soulful R’n’B artist with hit singles including Flavour of The Old School, Made It Back and Greatest Day. In the 2000s she hit new commercial heights with the Top 10 cross over hits Shoulda Woulda Coulda and Come As You Are. She has starred in two series of BBC 1’s Just The Two Of Us, hosted four series of BBC Radio 2 show Beverley’s Gospel Nights and performed at the 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. In 2013, Beverley successfully branched out into musical theatre, taking lead roles in West End productions of The Bodyguard (transforming its fortunes in the process) and in the award winning Memphis (in 2014) for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award as Best Actress in a Musical. She played Grizabella in the revival of Cats in 2015 for a brief run at The Palladium and reprises the role of Rachel in The Bodyguard at the Dominion Theatre from July. Beverley was awarded an MBE in 2006 for services to music and charity.

“I can’t say I prefer one thing over another. I like to sing,” says Beverley of her newly dual career. “But I am more happy with this record than anything I’ve done. It was just a beautiful experience. No matter what happens with it, I got some stuff out, and we made some beautiful music together.”

Contact Bournemouth Pavilion for tickets.