Fiona Boyes

FIONA BOYES – Box And Dice
Format: CD/ Label:Reference Recordings/Fresh: FR-717
Releasedatum: oktober 2015

Door: Iain Patience

Fiona Boyes is that rare thing, a female blues guitarist/singer/songwriter and an Australian. ‘Box and Dice’ is her first release under the US Bay-area Reference Recordings label where she’s in good company alongside the likes of Doug MacLeod, Lloyd Jones and others. And, like most Reference recordings, the studio quality is high with a splendid warm, empathic sound and glow.
Almost all of the eleven tracks featured here are written by Boyes who clearly knows her stuff and pitches well in the traditional blues field. There’s no doubt, and no missing, the inspired cigar-box and resonator input in this mix and Boyes’s picking is strong and full of purpose and power while her growling vocals deliver a steady punch and display a real depth, strength and direction. No purist, Boyes mixes and matches blues styles, moving smoothly from slide to swampy down South sounds, Piedmont to Texas shuffle, and rock-influenced riffs to Chicago licks with complete ease.

Pace is varied and Boyes has a confident, calm control over the material that shows a remarkable maturity and highlights her guitar-work to full effect. So much so, that she has in the past been referred to as ‘Bonnie Raitt’s Evil Twin’, a strikingly original accolade that she appears to relish. Anyone unsure about her blues credentials should take note that Boyes was the first non-American lady to pick up an award at the annual International Blues Challenge in Memphis. A truly excellent release from a guitar master of pure class.

Fiona Boyes - Juke Joint on Moses Lane - at The Manly Fig 2015/08/28

Website: Fiona Boyes


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