She is celebrating 25 years in the music business- and audiences at the Cliffs Pavilion next week will have the chance to share the milestone with the one and only Beverley Knight.

As she prepares to bring her tour, 'Friday Night is Music Night Live, the Songs of Stevie Wonder' to Southend' shores on Wednesday the award-winning artist opened up about her life and career so far...

How does it feel to be celebrating 25 years in the business?

Some days, I feel old! But honestly, I feel absolutely ecstatic that I’m in my 25th year. And not in the sense of “I’m in my 25th year, thank you, goodnight”, I’m in my 25th year, and it’s still on an upward trajectory. Somehow, it seems to be defying convention and expectation, that at my age, at this point in my career and in my life, it’s growing and building. It’s incredibly exciting.

Could you tell us about your relationship with Stevie Wonder and how this upcoming tour came about?

I have a very powerful connection to Stevie’s songs. The first song I ever heard on the radio was “Sir Duke”. I must’ve been…four? I didn’t know the words, I just knew that melody of the chorus, and drove everyone mad singing it.

My whole life is defined by music, and Stevie’s was the first voice I ever heard on radio. He has been a constant in my life, since my very formative years, and still is.

The tour came about because I did a one-off show for the BBC last year, which was part of the Friday Night Is Music Night series that they’ve been doing forever. I thought it was going to be just a one-off, but they wanted to do it with a bit of a twist. Instead of doing it in Maida Vale studios, they asked if I would do it in front of a live audience at the Palladium, and I was thrilled, obviously. It’s much more interesting as an artist to be able to perform.

It went so well that they asked if I would tour it, and I said “absolutely!”

Do you feel a sense of responsibility to do Stevie’s songs justice?

It’s a privilege and it’s a responsibility. The memories that are bound up in Stevie’s songs - in anybody’s songs if you’re a fan, are so tangible, that you can’t mess with people’s emotions like that. I have a job to do those songs justice, do them right, be true to myself, interpret them in the way that I see is fitting for them to be interpreted. But at the same time, not go off so far that people listen and go, “that doesn’t sound like the Stevie song that I know”. But then I’m a Stevie fan too, so of course, I will faithfully reproduce some songs, some of the funkier songs, they will be as you know them. On some of the other songs, you’ve got a few key changes and things like that, so there will be a different resonance just for technical purposes because I’m a woman (laughs). But I will keep the melodies and the notes and all of that the same. And hopefully, people will walk away and have their memories enhanced.

Have you ever met Stevie Wonder?

Yes, I’ve met Stevie twice! I met Stevie face-to-face backstage at Hyde Park and gave him a cuddle, and took a photo, which is going in a frame. I told him I was doing this tour, and he said he’d like to hear it which I was thrilled about!

But years before that, Prince flew me to LA to do an Oscars party, so the great and good of Hollywood were there, in his rented house. He then invited Stevie Wonder to join us up on stage. I was floored, as you can imagine. So I’ve got two geniuses up on stage with me! Like, how does that happen, you know? It was the single greatest musical moment of my life."

Beverly Knight will be at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend on Wednesday (October 2). Tickets from £55. southendtheatres.org.uk