9/6/2006

Dave Good

"Spunk and Attitude"

In 1987, Fiona Boyes had an epiphany. Soon after, she left her day job and borrowed a guitar. The crowning result, almost 20 years later, is this: Boyes made history as the first Australian and the first woman to win the solo/duo division of The Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge in Memphis. That was in 2003, by any standard a good year for Boyes. After having won virtually every Blues honor imaginable in Australia, Jazz Review listed her CD Gimme Some Sweet Jelly Roll as one of that year's three best Blues albums. In retrospect, quitting her day job turned out to be a brilliant career move. This year saw the release of Fiona's American debut, Lucky 13 on Yellow Dog Records. It features guest support from Marcia Ball, Bob Margolin, the Texas Horns, and Boyes' own band, the Fortune Tellers. Far too eclectic to be called a pure collection of the Blues, Boyes and producer Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff included 10 of her originals and three covers that cross over into jump, Rockabilly, 1950s Rock 'n' Roll, and Chicago and Texas Blues.

"Chicken Wants Corn" is a guitar strut that immediately sets the tone for the remainder of the CD - "sassy" is a word that comes to mind. Memphis Minnie channels Mae West and sings through a set of pipes that Johnny Winter would admire. Boyes' voice sounds grizzled, like something that was left out on the grill a minute too long. She says she earned that voice in the time-honored tradition: cigarettes and alcohol.

"But I got all that out of my system," she says. "I'm a good girl now." Next, "Celebrate the Curves" introduces a theme that will dominate almost half of the songs on Lucky 13. Horns almost rule this baker's dozen, from the jazzy New Orleans feel of "Curves" to the jump Blues of "Big Bigger Biggest." The remainder of the songs are rhythm- and guitar-based. But Fiona's charismatic fretwork balances all. There is an uncommon forcefulness in her personality on songs like "Good Lord Made You So" and "Red Hot Kisses" that fills in the blanks left by the absence of tubas and saxophones. "It's taken years," says the self-taught guitarist, "before I could attempt that sort of muscular Blues."

And Fiona can stand up against Kazanoff's full-blooded, horn-band production. On "Pigmeat Lover" she yodels and takes an almost Piedmont-style solo. If not an entirely central theme, then her guitar still works out plenty and with much brass and shine on the Carl Perkins-flavored "High Cotton" and "Rockabilly On The Radio" and then again on "Rambling Man Blues." There is plenty of six-string spunk and attitude to go around.

What keeps Lucky 13 from becoming too cute and sinking into the realm of the something-for-everybody record is this: call it the gravitas of Boyes' voice. It is a strong presence, informed by life, her convictions, and by her Blues influences. What is missing from Lucky 13 is a sense of deeper introspection. At times, I want the smile in Fiona's voice to fade away and for that voice to return with less buoyancy, less attitude. I want to hear her words do what her guitar can do, namely, to get down to business and deliver me from the evils of this current world in terms that aren't so damned good-natured.

Then again, Tommy Johnson, one of Boyes' influences, could sing about dark times and never shed that smile in his voice either.