Extraordinarily talented blues guitarist and vocalist Fiona Boyes will this month be inducted into the Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame after a dynamic 25 year music career that has taken her all over the world.
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Recent residents to Bega, Fiona and her husband Steve Clarke have already started to make their mark in the area, with Steve the new parish priest for St John's Anglican Church and Fiona already booking gigs.
It's not Fiona's first rodeo to the Bega Valley though, having performed blues gigs at Tathra Hotel and Cobargo Folk Festival in years gone by.
The eclectic couple moved from Yamba in August, but have also lived in Victoria, South Australia, and even in two states on either side of America - Florida and Oregon.
You wouldn't think it from all her success, but Fiona only fist picked up a guitar in her late twenties.
She said she has always been drawn to blues styles originating from all over the US.
"There's Mississippi Hills music which is really based on riffs and grooves, and then there's more finger picking stuff that's more melodic - different parts of America have regional styles of blues," she said.
She first began her career in Melbourne playing acoustic guitar and immediately gravitated towards finger picking - a style she said originated in blues music of the 1920s and 40s.
After a few years of playing she had the opportunity to join a band and started playing electric guitar, but over the years has also dappled in baritone guitars.
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She has flavoured her more recent albums with the sound of cigar box guitars - a traditional instrument that developed from people simply using what was on hand to create instruments.
"Traditionally cigars were sold in plywood boxes often with pretty labels and funky artwork on them.
"People would get these boxes and often add quite primitive objects to them, maybe a broomstick or something like that. Often the instruments were given three strings," she said.
Fiona tours with some of her own creations, made from traditional Cuban or Dominican cigar boxes and decorated with various objects, a style reminiscent of Mississippi folk art
"It uses a lot of funky found objects and bottle caps, poker chips, and beads."
Fiona said cigar box guitars were traditionally played like slide guitars.
"So you often hear people saying they sound like a swampy slide guitar, very bluesy - quite a surprising sound.
"They're interesting instruments to get your head around because often they only have one or two notes but it's amazing what you can get out of them."
She first travelled to America in 2003 to compete in an international blues contest held by the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee.
She was chosen to represent the Melbourne Blues Society and ended up winning the solo section.
She said it was an amazing experience that opened a lot of doors for her as she was the first non-American, and first woman to win.
"I had never been to America before and I knew I was playing in this place, particularly Beale Street in Memphis, which is this really historic place for the blues.
"I was really conscious that all my blues heroes, that I had been listening to on old records, would have played there back in the day."
She said the blues and guitar scene tended to be very male dominated, so she had always been "a bit of an outlier," and while that was "kind of tough at times", she was just so in love with the music and was driven by her immense passion.
"There's something about blues music itself, it's just good earthy human music that speaks to the human condition, being happy and sad, love and sex, and love gone wrong.
"As soon as I heard it I just thought, 'oh this style of music just does something for me, this is what I've been missing'," she said.
Since arriving to the Bega Valley, Fiona has sought out other blues musicians and has already started to find a home with the Candelo Blues Club who jam monthly at the Grand Hotel in Bega.
"Wherever I go I find the blues society or pub with live music and go and find my people."
Fiona will be the first woman ever inducted into the Blues Music Victoria Hall of Fame on Wednesday November 23, 2022.
She was also the only Australian musician ever to be recognised in the American Blues Foundation 'Blues Music Awards', with 8 nominations, including 2019 'Traditional Female Artist of the Year'.
She has organised a gig at the Twyford in Merimbula on Friday, December 16. She also has a Facebook page and Instagram.
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