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THE BITS INTERVIEW: LUCY PIPER

Lucy Kate Piper is the daughter of the late Julian Piper who died

unexpectedly in September 2019. Lucy is also a musician having, like

her brother Sam, absorbed a love of the blues from her father. Lucy

learned to play the drums and has become a sought after session
drummer, as well as working in her own band the Southern Fried Groove

Queens and with Dorset based multi instrumentalist and flat-foot dancer

‘Stompin’’ Dave Allen.

Lucy and her musical partner in the Southern Fried Groove Queens, Lee

Hall, were recently invited to play at a blues festival in Norway,

something Ian McKenzie wanted to know more about

LP: Hello.
Southern Fried Groove Queens
BiTS: Hello, Lucy. It's Ian McKenzie.

LP: Hello, Ian. Good to speak to you. How are
you doing?

BiTS: Anyway, let's talk about some music.
Tell me about how the last year has been for
you. I was looking at your website, and I saw
that in 2022, you did over 80 gigs. What sort
of number are you at now?

LP: What me personally or Groove Queens?

BiTS: Both.

LP: This year, yeah, I haven't tallied it up yet,
but it's got to be in the hundreds this year. I'd
say between 100 and 200 at least. Probably at
least half of those would have been Groove
Queens. Yeah, it's been very, very busy this
year, including we played in Norway, which
was great, in September. So that was our first
international booking, which was very
successful.

BiTS: That's what I wanted to know about.
What was Norway like? Where did you play at, and what did you do?

LP: Yeah, that was called the Ørland Bluesfestival, which was near Trondheim. Got that booking
through a Norwegian guy I met in Clarksdale, Mississippi, funnily enough. And he'd also booked

some of my Mississippi friends who were also playing out there. So it was very cool and kind of
strange to be, you know, over there with them, everything kind of aligning and us all being