SHARON Corr has found her own voice.

Best known as the violinist in the chart-topping band she formed with her siblings, the 44-year-old heads to Oran Mor on September 16 promoting her second solo record, The Same Sun.

Yet while her first album, 2010's Dream of You, was heavy on the violin and featured several traditional covers, this time she's embraced other influences, from Karen Carpenter to Joni Mitchell.

The result is a record that not only shows off a surprisingly soulful voice but is also emotionally upfront, from the lusty temptation of We Could Be Lovers to the poignant Christmas Night, which reflects on Sharon's mother passing away.

And the singer reckons tapping into honest emotion has been key to the album.

"It's extremely liberating as the one thing people are most afraid of is being vulnerable, and our survival instincts are to keep our defences up," she says.

"But as an artist you should be able to expose things completely, whether that's good or bad, and that's the most amazing therapy in the world. I've got more comfortable in my own skin over the years.

"When I'm writing it's straight from the heart, I don't put up any barriers and I just keep it coming, let it flow."

The songstress admits that it took time to reach that stage.

While the Corrs were a huge success story, it was Sharon's younger sibling Andrea who fronted the family outfit, and adjusting to taking centre stage herself after the band went on hiatus has been a gradual process for the chatty singer.

"When I was recording Dream of You I was still on a journey of discovery towards who I am as a solo artist," she says.

"It's like if you've been in a job for 20 years and you understand that role, how to play it and what to do, and then you're changing all that. I had to go from the Corrs to learning how to be me.

"I can hear that transition on Dream, and I'm trying to find my voice and my sound there."

The Same Sun certainly features a richer, fuller sound than before. However Sharon's quick to point out the recording process was very organic, and there's absolutely no chance she'd ever resort to using the likes of Auto-Tune to bolster her vocal.

"That's a bone of contention with me and why I'm always talking about organic and real," she says.

"There's two music industries the now, the fabricated industry and the real industry.

"There's a ton of great music out there, but if I listen to the Top 10 I can't tell one song from the other. And I don't think it's because I'm getting older, it's because it's like a conveyor belt where they just change one singer for another and tweak their vocals to sound similar.

"What's beautiful is when someone like Adele breaks through all that."

Sharon's been touring consistently over the past year, travelling throughout Europe and South America.

Her biggest trip in recent years, however, came as part of her charity work with Oxfam's Ending Poverty Starts With Women campaign.

She visited Tanzania, where she met women who had suffered violence from their partners.

"I was out there and it was an incredibly emotional, deeply profound experience," she recalls.

"These women are living in remote villages and they have no voice in their community.

"They do all these farming work, bring up their children and live in terrible poverty, while suffering terrible amounts of violence.

"They are living in absolute adversity, and yet there was joy in their faces when they were singing and dancing.

"A lot of women told me their stories and they were harrowing. It was quite a powerful trip and it did deeply affect me."

Sharon is back on more familiar ground for her upcoming tour, and is full of enthusiasm about visiting Glasgow for the first time in a few years.

"I love being in Scotland, it's always fantastic being among fellow Celts, and it's very similar to Ireland - although I prefer the Scottish accent," she says, laughing.

"It is always fun in Scotland and the audience get behind you, they're not shy and retiring.

"I prefer when an audience get stuck in and enjoy themselves - I don't want people with their arms folded at my gigs."

l Sharon Corr, Oran Mor, Tuesday, September 16, £17.50, 7pm.