10/1/2006

Gary von Tersch

Everything sounds like it gelled providentially on Australian blues singer, lyricist and guitarist Fiona Boyes' debut American project for Memphis, Tennessee's Yellow Dog Records. The fair-haired Boyes has had eight albums released Down Under since 1970 and is a regular on the island's club and festival circuit. Here she is joined by an Austin, Texas "A-list" band as well as guests Marcia Ball (who pounds the ivories on both a feverish "Rockabilly On The Radio" and You Gonna Miss Me" while joining Boyes vocally on the lusty "Celebrate The Curves"),ex-Muddy Waters guitarist Bob Margolin and producer Kaz Kazanoff and his always potent Texas Horns.

Margolin especially impresses on a wrenching cover of Sonny Boy Williamson's deep Delta classic "Red Hot Kisses" (where he also shares a sly vocal with Boyes) along with the pneumatic "Good Lord Made You So," where he trades early Chicago blues slide guitar licks with Boyes, while Kazanoff and his Horns add a 1940s Louis Jordan sheen to a rollicking "Big, Bigger, Biggest." The pre-war acoustic blues has always had a special appeal for Boyes and she's at her best on a trio of originals that lean that way. Both the harmonica-embellished "Rambling Man Blues" and a hard driving "Homesick Blues" (with Floyd Domino on piano and Danny Levin's fiddling) along with the spirited "Pigmeat Lover" also showcase Boyes' accomplished guitar playing and a raw, emotionally direct vocal approach a la Memphis Minnie or Bessie Smith. Her aching, lost-love ballad "Stranger In Your Eyes" is also superb. Boyes' facility to move in and out of a variety of blues styles with ease rivals that of a Rory Block or Bonnie Raitt. Hopefully, she'll get the attention her music deserves.