The saying ‘you can take a man out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the man’ is especially the case with Brighouse singer-songwriter Roger Davies.

In spite of spending parts of his early life in Dundee, where he studied art, in spite of being entranced by John Fante’s stories about Los Angeles and Charles Bukowski’s poems about living on the wild side in LA, the pull of Yorkshire was too great.

“They were writing about their experiences of doing manual labouring jobs. I had a similar experience, doing jobs that were leading nowhere. I wanted to be a painter and sold a few pictures, but it wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.

It was while living in Brighton seven years ago, when in his mid-20s, that an acute bout of homesickness sent him hurrying back to Brighouse, where he started writing songs such as Huddersfield Town, Brighouse on Saturday Night, Peter Brook’s Paintings, Bradford Girl, White Roses and Into the Sun.

They feature on his solo albums, Northern Trash (2007) and The Busker (2009). The latter received the Leeds Music Promotions Award for the Best Male Solo Album of 2009.

Earlier this week Roger’s third album, Songs In Plain English, was released. He worked on it for ten months.

He said: “I recorded 18 songs towards this album, but only ten made it on. Each song is there for a reason and tells its own true story. I went for ‘killer, no filler’ and I think I’ve got it this time.”

Among his new songs are Percy Shaw, which tells the story of how the Halifax inventor came upon the idea for reflective road studs – cat’s eyes to you and me, Judy Woods, which celebrates the woods near Wyke, and There’s Always a Song in it Somewhere, a song about songwriting that closes the album.

A popular performer with audiences at Bradford’s Topic Folk Club (he’s back there in September), Roger has been taking his songs further afield, to Scotland and to the South of England.

“People ask me if my songs travel well because they’re about Yorkshire. My experience in the North and the South is telling me that they do so. You don’t need to sing New York! New York” or I Left My Heart In San Francisco.

“I like to tell stories about believable people in believable landscapes – Percy Shaw in Halifax, the painters in St Ives in Cornwall, Peter Brook,” he said, referring to the Pennine landscape painter.

His equivalent to Don McClean’s song Vincent, which celebrates the life and painting of Van Gogh, is Peter Brook’s Paintings.

“I think that’s my favourite song. It’s been well received wherever I’ve performed it,” he added.

Songs in Plain English is available to download from iTunes or on CD from Sounds Good Records: evinsol.co.uk/cdsales.

* Roger Davies can be seen and heard in concert on August 30 at St Martin’s Parish Church, Brighouse. On August 1, which as everyone knows is Yorkshire Day, Roger will be performing at Addingham’s Elm Gallery, starting at 7.30pm. Ring (01943) 830697.