Still an island-girl at heart, Christine Collister chose to launch her UK tour and latest album with a concert in the Isle of Man.

The world-renowned blues and roots singer played alongside the Australian guitarist Michael Fix as they played a selection of tracks from their new album, ’North and South’ at the Villa Marina Arcade, on Friday night.

The album is made up of their own takes on some of their favourite pop and rock songs, along with original compositions, and the duo performed sparse, minimal versions of classic tracks, such as The Moody Blues song ’Forever Autumn’, and ’Witchita Line Man’, made famous by Glen Campbell.

’They played a wonderful mournful version of ’Wicked Game’, by Chris Isaacs, which really showed off the power and emotion Christine can muster, and she also sang a powerful version River Deep, Mountain High’, which she recalled singing in Douglas during the early 80s with friends, who were present in the audience.

Michael has his chance to shine with a splendid solo version of the song ’MacArthur Park’, before Christine returned to sing the Richard Thompson song ’Persuasion’.

Christine sang with Richard over a nine-year period between 1985 and 1994, and she revealed that she was due to sing at his 70th birthday concert at the Royal Albert Hall this week, where she will join legends such as Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on stage.