• Workshops
• About the Artist
• Multimedia

Mississippi to Maxwell Street

Level 2/3

Find the place where country blues meets the raw electric sounds of early Chicago Blues. Fiona Boyes, 2003 solo acoustic winner of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, is also a two-time Blues Music Awards nominee for her electric guitar performance. In this workshop, Fiona will explore her approach to playing finger-style blues, using both original songs and those of classic Blues players from Tommy Johnson to Howlin’ Wolf. Tunes are broken into sections, allowing students to see how the resulting phrases and shapes can be applied to their existing repertoires as well as encouraging new discoveries. Accessible and empowering for the less experienced, as well as seasoned players, the workshop aims to help guitarists of all levels find a stimulating, fresh understanding of blues music. As eclectic as the style itself, we’ll look at licks and runs in different keys, moveable chords, tonal approaches, attack and feel; all mediated by the needs and interests of the group. Bring an acoustic &/or electric guitar, small amp (preferably low-wattage tube amp such as Fender Champ/Blues Junior), capo, slide – or any other blues ‘conversation starters’! www.fionaboyes.com

About Fiona Boyes

Not surprisingly some critics consider Fiona a musical anomaly:  a fair haired, hard pickin’, down-home blueswoman who just happens to have lived all her life Down Under in Australia, light years from the Mississippi Delta or Chicago’s South Side. As one critic observed, Fiona understands blues music as deeply as if she had been raised on Dockery’s Plantation.  When Fiona performed for legendary bluesman Pinetop Perkins at his induction into the Blues Hall of Fame, he said ‘I ain’t heard a woman finger-pick a guitar like that since Memphis Minnie … she’s the best gal guitar player I’ve heard in more than 35 years’. As a multiple winner of every major performance and recording award in the Australian blues scene, Fiona arrived in January 2003 on Beale Street in Memphis, an epicenter of American blues. Representing Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society, she competed against the best emerging blues talent from around the world in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge, the world’s premier showcase for emerging blues talent.  And she won. Fiona became the first Australian and the first woman ever to win this prestigious event. 

Multimedia