HER beautiful, distinctive, bluesy tones have got respected local musicians wanting to work with her, but Debbie Taylor is about as unassuming as you can get about it.

She has performed and recorded with several bands over the years, including Phillious Williams and the Ben Floyd trio, and is cultivating her own act – Wednesday’s Child – with gigs, recording and filming set up for September.

“I don’t really push any of it though”, she tells me, taking a break from helping dismantle the Damn Dead Circus festival town, where she performed this weekend, “I prefer to focus on my writing and just let the other stuff happen as and when”.

Debbie, 26, started on the path to developing a vocal style when she was about 11, when she would mimic singers.

“I would sing songs for hours, and if there was a tricky part I would rewind it and practise it over and over again, until I got it right.

“I went to Belfairs and we had a talent show – I was in Year 9. A friend said I should enter and so I did. A music teacher picked up on it and encouraged me to do music. I hadn’t really thought of it before, but I really enjoyed it.” She studied vocals at Brighton University for a year, getting a diploma, but her songwriting really developed when she bought a guitar. “I was 20 years old when I picked up a guitar. I wanted to write songs. I knew some basic chords and shapes. I taught myself to play by ear. I still wouldn’t say I was a guitarist. It’s just a tool to enable me to write and perform.”

As well as performing solo, Debbie was being asked to perform with a lot of blues, funk and function bands.

“I even worked on an electronica album with Dave de Rose. He made an album which was mainly instrumental, but got some vocalists involved to add some lyrics to some of the songs.

“I sang on Young Dreams with Phillious Williams when Mark [Schubert – Phillious Williams’ front man] came out with his book Assassin Angels and he did the whole gig on it.

“I recently did a gig with Rob Clarke, who is a jazz drummer.

“I think my voice is quite adaptable and I’m open to a lot of different genres, so people just ask me to perform with them.

“The tone of it tends to work in the blues, soul, jazz and funk bracket. What I am playing in Wednesday’s Child, I would describe as acoustic soul.”

Debbie started performing for a while under the name Jimmy Eastwood, but disbanded that, beginning Wednesday’s Child a year ago.

“I didn’t write for a while,” she says, “then when I went back to it, I started out with a different style, so I became Wednesday’s Child.

“I wasn’t born on a Wednesday. It would work well if I did. I chose the name because ‘Wednesday’s Child is full of woe’ and as my songs are quite melancholic, it seemed to fit.”

Wednesday’s Child is currently working towards an EP, which will be recorded in the autumn. “I’m getting a little band together too, with a cellist and double bassist. It will still be very intimate, but I think it will add more dimension.

“Ben Hubbard shot a film of me a while back. He is an amazing photographer and asked if I would be up for him shooting me for a video. We did it for my song, Sworn to the Devil. It really is absolutely beautiful. We are doing another one in September for my song Unspoken Line.”

It would seem that the way people find Debbie, rather than the other way around, is testament to her unquestionable talent.

“I’m just happy doing what I’m doing”, she said. “The whole idea of being famous, going on X Factor or the Voice, doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

“I’d be very happy with moderate, local success, something more underground.”

Wednesday’s Child will next perform at Squeezebox Folk at the Alex in Southend on Sunday, September 15.