The album topped the ARIA Country Album chart and the debut single, My Break Up Anthem sat on top of the Australian Country Airplay chart for more than a month.

In fact, My Break Up Anthem became the second most played song on country radio for the year, only beaten by Sam Hunt’s massive hit Body Like A Back Road.

The rising star had been marked as one to watch for a while now, but for the bubbly 22-year-old sounded like she was still pinching herself over the success from her debut album.

“The debut ARIA chart, that was something that I didn’t expect. And for the first single to be the second most played song on country radio in 2017, that was huge for me,” Shadbolt said when reflecting on the year just gone.

Needless to say, the young singer-songwriter arrives at the Tamworth Country Music Festival ready for her best festival yet since she first started coming here almost a decade ago.

Here she will be headlining a show with Reece Mastin at The Albert Hotel on the evening of Wednesday, January 24, as well as a few other appearances, including one at FanZone.

Like Shadbolt, Mastin appeared on The X Factor (he won the 2011 series, three years before Shadbolt entered), and the pair recorded a duet, Me Without You, which was included on Songs On My Sleeve.

“It was almost a match made in heaven, it was like we wrote the song for his voice,” Shadbolt said.

“With that in mind, we wanted to do some festivals and Tamworth in particular, so I thought it would be really cool to join up and showcase that one together. We’ll play that duet at the show, and possibly a couple more.”

Like all the songs on the album, Me Without You was written by co-written by Shadbolt, and she said her success last year with My Break Up Anthem was more rewarding, because it came through songs she had written.

“It’s almost more exciting and more rewarding when you have success with one of your songs, because it literally is something you’ve written and something personal.

“Even when I play live sets now, the kind of songs I’m playing are totally different, it’s mainly all my songs that I’ve written and a couple of covers, whereas when I had the EP out there was only a couple of songs of mine you could play before you had to play covers.

“So it’s definitely a much more original show and it’s cool to see people singing along, and having a few singles under my belt to showcase at live gigs and festivals,” she said.