LIZ Green isn’t into analysis. She gave up her English Literature degree as all the nit-picking essays were ruining her enjoyment of reading, and now applies a similar philosophy to answering questions about her music.

Good! That makes her a challenging yet interesting interviewee, as the folk-blues singer, songwriter and artist from Levenshulme sets out on tour to promote a long-awaited debut album of tragic-comic, retro songs, O, Devotion!.

First issued at the back end of last year, it was re-launched by Play It Again Sam Records last Monday, seemingly to her surprise.

“If that’s the case, no-one has told me – but the album is being re-issued, clearly!” she said, jovially, when informed by The Press a few weeks ago of its planned resurrection.

Maybe the record company just wants to give it a second stab at a higher profile, Liz? “But I can’t help give it a higher profile if I don’t know about a re-launch! Mind you I’m not good about that sort of thing, so probably thought they’d just go ahead with it anyway!”

The principal talking point, as it will be when hearing Liz sing live on Tuesday at The Duchess in York, is her idiosyncratic voice. How come she sings so distinctively, like Billie Holiday crossed with Judy Garland, fronting a works brass band playing Kurt Weill songs in Beale Street, New Orleans?

“Distinctive?” she ponders. “To other people maybe, but I’m stuck with it! That’s what I sound like! I often think it sounds rubbish! That’s just how I sing!”

From that dismissive start, she then reflects more deeply on the art of singing. “It’s partly about how you feel comfortable singing,” she says, acknowledging that her voice is redolent of a bygone era.

“I really like it when Lana Del Rey sings low – and I don’t think there should be a problem over playing with your voice. I sing falsetto sometimes, and Tom Waits deliberately deepened his voice, smoking to get the right sound.”

The second point of discussion surrounding 28-year-old former special needs teacher Liz is why she took four years to follow up debut single Bad Medicine with an album. So, Liz, why? “I don’t tend to analyse things, and it’s only happened since everyone started asking questions – journalists, my parents – but I say I don’t know why. It just happened that way. I could have made it sooner but it wasn’t working,” she says.

“I don’t know if it sounded weird or if the people weren’t recording it right, but all I wanted was for it to sound live and natural, just me singing and playing guitar together.”

Liam Watson, introduced to Liz by a mutual friend, came up with the goods by keeping it simple, not asking her to do anything differently, and so O, Devotion! was born at last, with linocut artwork by Liz and a title spawned by a dream.

“I was listening to a lot of blues, especially Son House, and I had this dream where he was standing under a tree on a hill and he said he had this song for me, but when you wake you have nanosecond to write it down and all I could remember was the title, O, Devotion!” she says.

“I thought it must exist already but it didn’t, so I tried to write a song with that title but it didn’t work, so I kept it for the album title.

“But I’ll still write it, as the last song I ever write, when I’m 85 and have more experience!”

Did you know?

Liz Green comes from a Liverpool lineage of rag and bone men and executioners.

Liz Green plays The Duchess, York, on Tuesday, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, on Friday, with double bassist Samuel Buckley and saxophonist Gus Fairbairn.