Emily Barker has seen a lot of the world since she left her hometown in Western Australia about 20 years ago.
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The Americana artist backpacked around the world, made her first recordings in Brazil, played as a duo, then in bands in the UK, then accidentally became a solo artist.
In 2018 she was crowned UK Americana Artist of the Year at a gala concert in London.
But this year marks the first time that Barker will experience the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
The singer-songwriter is playing the FanZone stage on Sunday afternoon, then at Americana in the Park on Monday evening before a couple of gigs at The Welder's Dog, both on Wednesday afternoon.
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When Barker first left Australia to go backpacking, she always travelled with a guitar along with her best friend Andrea.
They performed as a duo and wrote songs, and even got the chance to make a record with a producer they met in Brazil, at his home studio.
"We were about 20 then, but we had been performing together and writing since we were 15, so we had a bunch of songs that we'd written. We'd give (the record) to friends and family," Emily recalled.
In England, which would later become home, Barker met a lot of musicians and spent time playing at open mic nights.
She played in bands, including Vena Portae and Applewood Road, with whom she released an album of original songs recorded live around a single microphone.
Back in WA one year, she wrote an album's worth of songs in three months, then returned to the UK to make an album with another band The Low Country.
It was after The Low Country had made two records that Barker accidentally went solo.
"We had a band gig in London and I had come to London earlier on the train, and the others were coming in a car."
But when the car broke down, the rest of the band could not make the gig in time.
"I ended up doing a solo gig and there was a producer at that gig who came up to me, he'd just moved from Stockholm in Sweden, and was living in a recording studio and we ended up making a solo album together," Barker said.
"I had just started writing songs that didn't fit the mould of the band, so it worked out. Very good timing."
Since then, Barker has released albums with a four-piece band called Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halos, as well as albums under her own name.
Although, she is best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the BBC's hugely successful crime drama Wallander.
Back in Australia, she is now looking forward to her first time in Tamworth.
"I'm just really curious to walk around and soak up the atmosphere," Barker said. "I really like festivals that are in towns or cities, there's something nice about being in a town and just wandering around and hearing music.
"So I'm really looking forward to seeing what it's all about."
