Fiona Boyes - Blues Woman - Yellow Dog Records 2009

Blues Woman is the latest offering in a highly celebrated young career for Australian Fiona Boyes, who burst on the Blues scene in America back in 2003, when she became both the first woman, and the first Aussie, to win Best Solo Acoustic Performer at the International Blues Challenge.

Boyes hasn't looked back since her debut in the States, picking up a long list of awards and nominations from Blues organizations from around the globe, including nominations at the Blues Music Awards the past three years running.

Blues Woman is Fiona's latest Yellow Dog Records release, and although it was recorded in Texas, the record travels the Blues highway quite nicely, making musical stops in Chicago, the Mississippi Hill Country, and other prominant Blues styles along the way.

The disc starts out with "Woman Ain't A Mule," an empowering song about the moment that a woman realizes she's going to set herself free from being her man's beast of burden.

Blues Woman starts to pick up steam with "Howlin' At Your Door," a tune that Boyes cites Robert 'Wolfman' Belfour as the chief inspiration for, but a great tune that you can equally hear another famous Wolf sitting in on from the beyond, as well. Boyes provides gruff vocals against piercing guitar licks on this sharp track.

Boyes wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the records, except for "I Want To Go" (J.B. Lenoir), and "Look Out Love!," which belongs to fellow Aussie Chris Wilson, and features dobro work by one of my personal favorite artists, Watermelon Slim. Slim's appearance on the disc isn't the first guest nod, with Marcia Ball lending her piano prowess on "Train To Hopesville." There's also an appearance by the ageless Pinetop Perkins, who's work on the 88's can be heard the CD's closer, "Old Time Ways;" and a huge all-star revival with Slim and Ball returning on "The Barrelhouse Funeral."

The majority of the tracks on Blues Woman feature just three and four piece arrangements, though, with Fiona even laying down "Juke Joint On Moses Lane" by her lonesome, needing nothing more than her resonator guitar and stomp box to get her point across.

Boyes playing is at one point delicate and elegant, then suddenly unpolished and mean. Her vocals go from lilting to gruff to soothing to scornful. She moves from Blues style to Blues style on this album like a cross country train, making stops in the towns where the Blues is still alive and well

Clocking in at 52 minutes on the strength of 15 impressively stout songs, Blues Woman is over before you realize it; and you will quickly find yourself starting the album over to pick up on that lick or vocal subtlety that you missed the first time around.

Standout Tracks: All of Them, Especially "The Barrelhouse Funeral," "Place of Milk and Honey," "Juke Joint On Moses Lane" and "Old Time Ways"

Preview and purchase songs from the album Blues Woman by Fiona Boyes.