10/1/2009

Gary von Tersch

No less an authority than Muddy Waters’ piano player Pinetop Perkins (who appears on one cut here) has been quoted as stating that Australian-bred Fiona Boyes is “the best gal guitar player I’ve heard in more than 35 years…I ain’t heard a woman finger-pick a guitar like that since Memphis Minnie!” Indeed, her all-originals, sophomore album for enterprising Yellow Dog Records, the follow-up to 2006’s award winning Lucky 13, demonstrates all over again her artistic depth and ability to stay true to continental blues traditions, while still being an innovator, as she operates quite convincingly in settings both large and small. From a solo turn, with just resonator guitar and stomp box, as she gives a nod to a “Juke Joint On Moses Lane” called the Bradfordville Blues Club, that is housed in an old, tree-framed concrete bunker on the outskirts of Tallahassee, Florida to tracks like “Train To Hopesville”—that boasts a full soul-blues band, with Marcia Ball guesting on the ivories, along with Kaz Kazanoff’s greasy Texas Horns (an aggregation Doug Sahm would have loved) and backing vocals by the aptly monikered The Congregation.

Ball also shows up on the stridently testifying “The Barrelhouse Funeral,” along with the legendary Watermelon Slim on high-wire, country blues harmonica and “hell and brimstone Southern preacher vocal” as Boyes narrates the tale of an actual funeral she read about with an unlikely outcome while nonagenarian pianist Perkins adds some of his patented barrelhouse alchemy to an easy rocking slice of retro titled “Old Time Ways.” Kazanoff and his Horns, in addition to “Hopesville” also enliven efforts like the utterly soulful “Do You Feel Better” (fine tremolo guitar by Boyes and punctuative keyboards Nick Connolly) and the easy loping, sultry “Got My Eye On You” (great bari sax by Kaz). Also noted is the confrontational “Woman Ain’t A Mule,” the hypnotic, Mississippi Hill Country-grooved “Howlin’ At Your Door” (with just Derek O’Brien on rhythm guitar and drummer Jim Bott) and the hard times lament “Place Of Milk And Honey,” that owes a large debt to Mississippi Fred McDowell. Recommended.