Bella Hardy had every reason to be cheerful. She was hailed as folk singer of the year at this year's BBC Folk awards, and is celebrating her 30th birthday by performing at 30 of her favourite venues around the country. As she currently has no new album to promote, she could give a relaxed reminder of her musical history.

She began as a traditional singer, but is now best known for her own songs – though her compositions often echo traditional songs, or have been constructed around them then given a contemporary edge. It's a subtle and sophisticated way of reworking the folk tradition, but is just one part of her skill as a songwriter; she can also produce atmospheric or pop-orientated material, too.

Backed by her own fiddle playing and her four-piece band, the Midnight Watch, which included Anna Massie of Blazin' Fiddles on guitar, she began with Good Man's Wife, a song based on folk stories of ladies leaving their feather beds to run off with Gypsies. Hardy transformed it into an angst-ridden romance with the opening line: "I've been loving you like a soldier in the peacetime waiting for the war."

Three Black Feathers, recorded in 2007, and Yellow Handkerchief, from 2013's Battleplan showed how well she can rework and revive traditional material; elsewhere, she moved away from folk-influenced songs for an atmospheric Full Moon Over Amsterdam, and introduced a poignant new song, Jolly Good Luck to the Girl That Loves a Soldier, from a forthcoming project on the first world war.

In her easy-going way, Hardy has become one of our most versatile and impressive songwriters.

• At the Fleece, Boxford (01787 211183) on 7 June. Then touring until 26 June.