LISTEN to Delta Maid sing her country blues and you would swear she must be a young American belle.

Hear her talk, however, and the truth is very different, not so much Mississippi delta as Merseyssippi. “My real name is Katie, believe it or not!” she says, her accent affirming her Scouse roots.

Katie Foulks, 25, from Wavertree in South Liverpool, released her debut album in the guise of Delta Maid this week and will be showcasing this Future/Geffen release on Wednesday at City Screen in York.

“It’s funny, but I didn’t realise I sounded like an American singer, but because I’ve listened to American roots music for so long, I can’t sing in any other way,” she says. “It’s not a case of me sitting down and thinking, ‘Right, I’m going to sing like this’. I’ve never had any training; I just always sounded like this, just like Amy Winehouse sings with a New York twang.

“It’s just that I’m singing country music as a girl from Liverpool….but I couldn’t sing it in a Scouse accent. This way just feels right, and it’s one of those things where I can’t believe how often people mention it.”

Sorry, Delta, but York Twenty4Seven has just mentioned it too. “I know, it’s sort of a rod for my own back calling myself Delta Maid but I made that name up years ago, before I made it as a musician,” she reveals. “And listen, I’m not a purist; I write contemporary songs but influenced by the past.”

She is quick to stress that her Mersey Delta, Fifties-echoing music is “not a pastiche”, even if the titles sound almost too perfectly country. Titles such as Broken Branches, Running On Empty, Outside Looking In, Dance With My Broken Heart, When Love Grows Cold and Back The Last Horse.

“Obviously my experience of growing up in Liverpool and living there now has an effect on the songs,” says Delta. “I had quite a normal life. I can’t say that I’ve had this most terrible upbringing, but I have feelings that I want to write about, introspective thoughts.

“I first wrote as a teenager, the same sort of songs as now, but on the piano as it was my favourite instrument. I don’t play it as much now but it wasn’t until I picked up a guitar four of five years ago that the songwriting came naturally, though now I have no problem writing on the piano. You just have to learn your craft.”

It took Delta’s mum to coerce her into singing in public. “It was at The Ticket in Liverpool, quite a legendary venue, and she got me to do that for charity gig,” she says. “I’d always sung but only for myself or family events, but that gig was the catalyst that made me feel ‘I really want to do this’.

“I was doing country and blues covers at the time but I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I can’t just do covers.”

Her writing took her down country roads too, but again it wasn’t forced. “I wasn’t trying to have a country sentiment, but the songs just reflect what I’m thinking,” says Delta. “I wouldn’t say I’m a sad person but I’m quite a deep thinker. A lot of my songs are penned in my bed late at night.”

Explaining the choice of album title she reasons: “I’d say Outside Looking In is all about being introspective. When I look back at making the album, I think, ‘Oh god, is that how I was feeling at that time?’.

“I don’t think of it as me being an outsider looking in on America. I didn’t think about the bigger picture in that sense, because you don’t think of yourself in that way, but I’m aware that I’m changing and for this album I became the outsider looking back at my younger self.”

Mr H presents Delta Maid at The Basement, City Screen, York, Wednesday, 8pm. Box office: 0871 902 5726 or thebasementyork.co.uk