UPCOMING singer-songwriter Claire Nicolson is literally singing for her supper on a UK tour which brings her to Cornwall next week.

Sing For Your Supper is a continuing project in which Claire pitches up at bars and pubs and offers them a tune or two from her and her guitar in exchange for a hot meal.

Her first stop was Northern Ireland and Eire earlier this year, where she clocked up 15 dates and gained plenty of press and radio attention, before rocking up at several festivals including Standon Calling and Electric Picnic.

This winter sees Claire kick things off in Cornwall, singing her way through countryside pubs to her native turf in Oxfordshire.

Toothpaste & Whisky is the debut single release from Claire's forthcoming album 52 Card Pick Up (due early 2011, sign up for a free download at www.clairenicolson.com).

A bouncy, up-for-it singalong anthem with a wink in its eye, it's brimming with a bluesy twang, thanks, in part, to some amazing harmonica from Alabama 3's Nick Reynolds. Flipside Scorpion, with its spidery guitar-picking and eerie Mellotron strings, is the polar opposite.

"Dusty Springfield weaned on acid folk rock that makes little children laugh and grown men weep," said noted singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt

You can see Claire at the Castle Inn, St Ives, on Wednesday and the Copperhouse Inn, Hayle, on Thursday, December 2.