THREE years ago, Sasha McVeigh, who plays at The Courtyard on September 4, was sitting on offers from five universities, with four A levels to her name and a burning desire to launch a career in music.

It's thanks to her parents that Hereford-born Sasha was able to divert from the uni path and follow her dream of a life in music.

Sasha reveals that her mother had made a deal to support her dream if she did well in her A levels. But, A level results in hand, Sasha admits to an uncharacteristic moment of indecision: “I knew I wanted to pursue this but I didn’t really know how. Then, in December 2011, my nan passed away, and her death made us stop as a family and re-evaluate. That was when we sold “everything but the house” and headed for Nashville”

Unashamedly Herefordian, Sasha is anything but when she sings, channelling the sound and spirit of country music like a Nashville native. “When I sang in Nashville, American tourists would come in and I’d be singing and then I’d stop and start talking and they’d look at me as if to say ‘how does that work!’.

Of all the things that have happened to Sasha in the last three years, the most amazing, she says, was performing at The Academy of Country Music awards in Las Vegas last year. She has recently been nominated in two categories - female vocalist of the year and UK album of the year - by the British Country Music Awards.

Her album, I Stand Alone, is, she says, “an album I’ve been waiting my whole life to make and I can’t believe it’s finally here. It chronicles the stories of my life so far and compiles them into one, big rhyming diary.”

One effect of the continual touring has been to give Sasha a renewed appreciation of her home county. “Uuntil I was about 16 I thought Hereford was the worst place to live and I was always saying I’d move as soon as I could.

“I must admit that after travelling all over the UK and USA, coming home to views of the Golden Valley and the Black Mountains is perfection. There’s not another place in the UK or USA quite like it.

"It’s very surreal to be playing at The Courtyard – I used to be in Youth Theatre there," she says.