She came second on last year’s X Factor but, as Andy Welch discovers, now it is Rebecca Ferguson’s time to shine

LIVERPOOL singer Rebecca Ferguson finished second on 2010’s X Factor, runner-up to Matt Cardle. But, as his career shows signs of stalling, hers is getting off on the right foot.

There have been positive reviews in the broadsheets – one gave debut album Heaven five stars – and she has already sold out two dates at the Philharmonic Hall next year and scheduled a date at the Echo Arena.

“The feedback has been amazing, and the album’s been getting praise from people I really didn’t expect to like it,” she explains.

“I was saying to Eg (White, co-writer and producer) when it was finished ‘If this doesn’t work, I’m leaving that big house, packing the kids up and going back to Liverpool’, to which he said, ‘No pressure then, Becky’, and worked even harder.”

While Rebecca was in 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.

Her album doesn’t stray too far from that formula, and given the popularity of Adele this year, it’s certainly very current.

“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.