CHANNELLING the voice and attitude of Janis Joplin and Tina Turner with a touch of contemporary female blues singers like Janiva Magness, Sari Schorr has burst onto the world of modern American electric blues like a force of nature. This autumn she plays Selby Town Hall.

Already inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame, Schorr enticed legendary producer Mike Vernon (who worked with Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall and Eric Clapton) out of retirement to work on her debut album entitled... A Force of Nature.

One of the tracks on that album - Schorr's take on 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter's Black Betty - put reviewers into an ecstasy. It's a "stripped back, pain-infused piece of musical magnificence (which) takes on a whole new lease of life and comes out the other side reborn and rejuvenated in ways otherwise unimaginable,” according to Ross Muir of Fabrications.

Schorr herself is more blunt about what the song is about. "Although there are many interpretations, for me the song is about a slave, a rape and the cracking of a whip," she says, in the notes to the track on her album.

Schorr has now formed a band, The Engine Room, featuring Robert Plant’s guitarist Innes Sibun, and is undertaking her first European tour.

The Edinburgh Jazz Festival wrote of her: "Dirty blues, gritty vocals, and a deep personal commitment have catapulted New Yorker, Sari Schorr, into the spotlight as one of the hottest new blues rock singers of 2016...She's a major player on the blues scene. Catch her now."

You can do just that when her tour brings her to Selby Town Hall on September 23: an unmissable chance to hear her powerful, raw vocals for yourself.

* Sari and The Engine Room, Selby Town Hall, Friday September 23. Tickets £13 in advance, £15 on the door