AVIDIGI

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, 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.
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 contemporary 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."
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.