entertain/Bristol catches up with X Factor alumni Rebecca Ferguson as she takes her soulful sound on tour

Rebecca Ferguson has dreamed of being a singer since she was seven and now, despite not winning The X Factor in 2010, her dreams are coming true.

Rebecca finished second to Matt Cardle on the show but it's currently Rebecca who is getting rave reviews for her debut album, Heaven.

"The feedback has been amazing," says the mum of two from Liverpool.

While Rebecca was in The X Factor, she was constantly told by the judging panel that she had the voice of a ready made recording artist and, thanks to her renditions of Anthony Newley's Feeling Good, Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come and jazz standard Why Don't You Do Right?, that she should concentrate on retro soul.

So she's been doing just that with the new album and has even tried songwriting herself.

"I wrote a song a day for about six months," begins Rebecca, "but we scrapped loads before recording.

"I was looking for songs that I felt especially connected to, and while some of the songs we got rid of were brilliant tunes, I just didn't think I could sing them night after night for a year, if not longer, without feeling really close to them."

Too Good To Lose is Rebecca's favourite song on the album, while she says Teach Me How To Be Loved has the most meaning for her.

When she first appeared on The X Factor and stunned the judges, it wasn't the first time she'd auditioned on the show.

There were failed attempts in 2005 and 2006, a rejection from Britain's Got Talent in 2009 and, most painful of all, she was turned away from P Diddy's Starmaker in 2007, which her family had clubbed together to fund.

"I didn't just dream of becoming a singer," she points out. "I was really active in trying to make it happen.

"When I was 14, I got a job to be able to afford my singing lessons, and I was constantly looking for other things.

"I thought 'maybe if I do a bit of modelling, maybe I'll get noticed and I'll have a foot on the ladder that way'.

"Getting those rejections was hard, though," she continues. "The first time was really bad, because I thought I had talent and could do it. I thought 'maybe I can't sing. Maybe I'm one of those deluded ones who just thinks they can'.

"It was tough, but I went back again, and got knocked back again. I still thought they were wrong, but with the third and fourth knock-back, I started to doubt myself.

"I tried sending demos off, and got nothing back. It's funny that people say they love my voice now because it hasn't changed at all.

"I don't know what it was, but I believe in timing and things happening when they're meant to."

With two children, now aged five and seven, it's perhaps easier that Rebecca's career takes off now.

Her own childhood was difficult, growing up in foster homes. "I'm too honest to lie, and I'm too polite to say 'I'm not talking about that' so if I'm asked something, I just answer," she explains.

"My childhood was hard, and I was in foster homes, but it's no different from what thousands of kids are going through today. And me talking about it might help someone.

"I could shut up about some things – and you have to keep some things back – but a child in foster care could see me and think 'she's doing OK, maybe there is hope?' and that's great.

"There are positives and negatives, and I'm learning fast. I'm still Becky from Liverpool, but this is what I always wanted, and now I'm doing it."

Rebecca Ferguson plays the Colson Hall on Monday, March 12, at 7pm. Tickets cost £19.50-£32.50. Tel 0117 922 3686