Fiona Boyes - Box & Dice (2015)

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Fiona Boyes - Box & Dice (2015)

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Fiona Boyes is an amazing blues performer from Australia with a great husky voice and a love for unusual instruments. This self-produced album features simple but effective arrangements. Boyes plays a six-string “Box and Dice” cigar box guitar, which gives the album its title and a four-string cigar box guitar, a National Reso-lectric baritone guitar, and a custom-made Maton Mastersound Electric. She is joined by Dean Addison on double bass and Mark Gundren on drums and percussion, which includes ropes, chains, and a pocket full of coins.

These unusual instruments ensure a different and interesting sound, but do not think of this album as a novelty. It’s not that at all. The songs include nine great originals and three marvelous covers. It is sort of funny to hear this Australian artist sing about “Louisiana” and “Tallahassee,” but we all know that the blues creates spiritual homes to go along with our physical ones.

The album opens with Boyes’ own “Juke Joint on Moses Lane,” using her evocative finger-style picking to emphasize the tune and her husky vocal. She uses the six-string again for “I’m A Stranger Here,” which reflects the melancholy starkness of traditional spirituals from the American South, and (for one of this reporter’s favorite tracks) “Mama’s Sanctified Amp” and the folk blues of “I Done Quit.”

Boyes switches to the four-string for “Louisiana” and the amusing “Tiny Pinch of Sin.” She brings out the rare Reso-lectric for “Walking Around Money,” which features Gundren on pocket change appropriately enough. The baritone guitar is also featured on “Walk With Me” and for a great cover of “Black Mountain Blues,” a song by J.C. Christian (which was sung by Bessie Smith and later by Janis Joplin). She uses her regular electric for a smoking version of “Smokestack Lightning” and a cover of Magic Sam’s “Easy Baby” that really lets her show her chops.

This album is simply an example of how great stripped-down blues can be. Boyes has a great voice for the blues. She and her band have lots of instrumental style and ability. Boyes is a strong songwriter, too. Check her out.

Review by Rhetta Akamatsu, BlogCritics.org

In 2014, singer/guitarist Fiona Boyes was the first Australian blues artiste to be invited to play at the prestigious US traditional acoustic festival ‘MerleFest’. She is also a winner of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.

This album comprises eleven tracks, eight of which are original compositions. Fiona Boyes is backed by double bass player Dean Addison and drummer Mark Grunden, who also plays an unusual range of percussion instruments including frottoir, coins, chains and horse shoes.

“Juke Joint On Moses Lane”, a lively opener, and the slower and bluesier “I’m A Stranger Here” are both splendidly accompanied by Fiona’s six-string ‘Box & Dice’ cigar box guitar, which gives the album it’s title. The upbeat rocker, “Walking Round Money”, then brings the excellent rhythm section into play followed by a tremendous rendition of “Smokestack Lightning”, which is the perfect vehicle for the singer’s raunchy vocals.

The bluesy ballad “Louisiana” introduces the four-string FB Australian Classic cigar box guitar while JC Johnson’s “Black Mountain Blues” delivers distinctive shades of Janis Joplin and adds a National Reso-lectric baritone guitar into the fray. The fast-moving foot-tapper, “Mama’s Sanctified Amp” makes way for the shuffling “I Done Quit” before solo mode is resumed on the Delta blues “Walk With Me”.

The delightful compendium is brought to a close with “Tiny Pinch Of Sin”, an upbeat rocker boasting some lovely guitar work on the cigar box four-stringer, and a fine version of Magic Sam Maghett’s slow blues, “Easy Baby Magic”.

“Box & Dice” is a superb album, which features great vocals and terrific guitar playing and incorporates a very effective mixture of styles across the blues spectrum. Very impressive.

Review by Lionel Ross, BluesInTheNorthWest.com

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Fiona Boyes - Box & Dice (2015)

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Fiona Boyes - Box & Dice (2015)

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Fiona Boyes - Box & Dice (2015)

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