Artists:Fiona Boyes

Fiona Boyes is a musical anomaly: a fair haired, hard pickin', down home, country blues master who just happens to have lived all her life Down Under in Australia, light years from the Mississippi Delta. However, Fiona understands blues music as deeply as if she had been raised on Dockery's Plantation in Mississippi.

Having won every major performance award in Australian blues music and with nothing left to prove in her homeland, Fiona arrived in January 2003 on Beale Street in Memphis Tennessee, the epicenter of American blues. Representing Melbourne, Australia, she competed against the best young blues talent from around the world in the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge, the world's premier showcase for emerging blues talent.

And she won.

Fiona became the first Australian and the first woman to win the acoustic division of this prestigious event. She returned to the U.S. in May that same year to perform at the W. C. Handy Awards, the Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, the Chicago Blues Festival, the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, and Portland's Waterfront Blues Festival.

That wasn't all. At the same time, she also played 75 dates in 15 states in a 90 day visit to the U.S., putting Fiona on blues stages with some of the greats in the blues. With Fiona's impressive talents, work ethic, and amiable personality, she easily wowed American blues performers. Bob Margolin (Muddy Waters' former guitarist), Kaz Kazanoff, Marcia Ball, Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women, Alvin "Youngblood" Hart and others have embraced this talented Aussie, proving it doesn't matter where you were raised, as long as you play the blues right, you will be accepted as a valued member of the blues family.

Fiona didn't stop there. She even bowled over true Blues legends Pinetop Perkins and Hubert Sumlin with her aggressive playing and singing. In fact, Perkins, the legendary Grammy and Blues Foundation honoree has said, "I ain't never heard a woman finger-pick a guitar like that since Memphis Minnie. She's the best gal guitar player I heard in more than 35 years."

Minnie would sure be proud to hear the likes of Fiona Boyes carryin' on her tradition.

All in all, it's been quite a homecoming for this blues spirit who came of age in another country. Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Fiona's musical likes differed from the tastes of her peers. While most kids were glued to whatever was on ontemporary radio, Fiona heard nothing there that moved her. Then, she found a local folk and blues club where she met a musician who was into early Delta and country blues.

"That was the first blues I ever heard," says Fiona. "He was playing a lot of Robert Johnson and other music from that era. I think a lot of people start into the blues from the music of Hendrix or Cream and go backwards. I started with the early country blues and worked forward."

From there, Fiona waited seven or eight years before attempting to play the blues she was listening to, eventually discovering a woman guitar player who would become her idol: Memphis Minnie.

"She was the girl guitar player of her generation and she played on her own terms. She had a long career and stood up for herself. Memphis Minnie has that great classic picture of her holding her guitar, looking so sassy with that steely, "don't mess with me" look in her eyes. I realized that she pioneered some different things that influenced players who went on to become much more famous than she'd ever become. Those things were inspiring to me."

Though Fiona had fronted her New Orleans styled blues band, the Mojos, releasing five records, she embarked on a solo acoustic career in 2000. Her debut solo album, Blues in My Heart, was released to critical acclaim. In Australia, it won her the 2001 Female Blues Artist of the Year, the 2001 Song of the Year, and the 2002 Blues Performer of the Year awards from APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association), as well as accolades from reviewers and audiences around the world.

In 2002, Fiona recorded her second acoustic album, Gimme Some Sweet Jelly Roll. The record has the ambient feel of the thirties, containing acoustic gems which preserve the brash spirit of Blues originators like Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie; however, in the modern studio setting, Boyes' playing and singing are crisp and clear. Gimme Some Sweet Jelly Roll was listed by Jazz Review of the USA as one of the three Best Blues Albums of 2003, alongside releases from Marcia Ball and Rory Block. In 2004, Fiona released Live In Atlanta featuring Bob Margolin and Kaz Kazanoff from that year's American tour.

Now, with her US debut release, Fiona Boyes has come full circle. As the rising country blues star from Australia, Fiona is primed to find her place in the American roots and blues and ready to strut her stuff on Lucky 13.

To take on the challenges of the American blues scene, Fiona hooked up with Memphis-based record label Yellow Dog Records, which is quickly establishing a sterling reputation in blues and roots music. She added an all-star collection of American musicians and traveled from Australia to Austin, Texas to work with Grammy Award winning producer Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff on this, her finest music to date.

"I love the emotional investment of being able to record my own material. I really enjoy the challenge of writing the older, acoustic songs because I can tell about things that are happening to me now, but if I can couch the songs in blues phrases, I can give them my own twists yet make them sound like they are from the 1920s."

But this record is not a nostalgic walk through your parents' music collection. Boyes' contemporary sensibilities perfectly mix the soul of the blues in her songs to give this album a thoroughly fresh feel that is the real essence of the blues.

Whether Fiona plays the music of New Orleans, back porch, deep Delta blues, music patterned after the classic blues women of the 1920s, or whether she electrifies Chicago styled blues or even plays greasy Memphis soul or high octane rockabilly, Fiona plays it all with a profound sense of appreciation of this music..