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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Bex Marshall

Bex Marshall grew up in Devon, and started playing guitar at 11. When
she was 18, she began work on cruise liners and in poker dens in the
Netherlands, before moving to Australia.

She later cited her extensive travelling as inspiration for songwriting.
She began playing live in the 12 Bar Club in London in the early 2000s.

In 2013, she won the Best British Blues Vocalist poll at the UK Blues
Awards. In 2014, she began touring Russia for the first time

She has just completed a tour in the USA. Ian McKenzie spoke to her on

the telephone at a gig venue in the Isle of Wight.

BiTS: Hi Bex, Thanks for talking to me. Let me tell you what I want to do. I want to
talk to you about your background, first of all, and then about the upcoming

period of time. See what you're going to be up to in the
next year or so.

BM: Okay, cool.

BiTS: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me, how did
you get into blues music in the first place?

BM: Well,

I really
didn't sort
of plan it like

that, but my uncle
had a fantastic album
collection which he allowed me to

listen to when I was in my early
days, sort of 10/11 years old, and I
just kind of soaked it all up and

naturally gravitated towards the
rootsy side of blues.

BiTS: What kind of artists were you listening

to at that time? What was in his collection?

BM: Oh well, I mean, the early stuff was sort of
everything from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughn

to Howlin’ Wolf, but again, he had a lot of British
blues in his album collection.