Beth Hart. Wow, what a voice and what an incredible story! If you’re not familiar with this Grammy nominated singer/songwriter here’s your opportunity. Beth possesses one of the most phenomenal blues voices you’re ever likely to hear, although she first broke through in the world of pop with the U.S edition of Star Search in the early 90’s. Beth later struck gold with LA Song (Out Of This Town), a hit in several countries including her native U.S.A.

Her early success was hampered by a life of personal turmoil with destructive relationships and even more destructive drug abuse derailing her early promise.

Beth hit rock bottom when she ended up serving time in jail but began to turn her life around with a cleaner lifestyle and renewed purpose. Then a series of collaborations covering blues numbers with Joe Bonamassa raised her profile and her solo albums started to gain attention.

Now in her mid 40’s she’s making the finest records of her career with her last 3 albums drawing rave reviews and ever increasing audiences for her gigs.

Her latest album Fire On The Floor is an absolute knockout – as far as I’m concerned it’s her best yet.

I caught up with Beth on tour, where she was playing a series of dates to promote the new album, but a word of warning – Beth’s lived life to the max and accordingly her language and the nature of what she discusses can be a little hard core, so if you’re a shrinking violet this podcast might not be your cup of tea.

One last note. Podcasting is a new experience for me and the technical reality of recording an interview over the net without the advantage of a high tech studio or compressors can be challenging (as I’m discovering!). The interview was recorded via Skype where Beth’s voice was given precedence over mine in the recording process – not a problem for me personally, but technically it meant that at times when Beth was jumping into the conversation when I was speaking she drowned me out. My apologies for that technical issue – I’m working to rectify that for future episodes.