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regularly, although they’re fine instruments, the nature of the cigar box is that they are made
out of plywood and ticky-tacky and so when you are throwing them in and out of tour vans
and flying with them and putting on the road on tour, every now and again they were coming
apart at the seams. So The Preacher was thrown into the role of guitar tech and having to

apply open heart surgery to a lot of my cigar boxes. So he became inspired during lockdown to
start building his own. So, yes, I haven't started but certainly, I’ve been lucky enough to be
increasingly having different funky instruments made for me and then I get to road test them.

BiTS: Fiona, I won’t take too much more of your time.

FB: Right, that sounds great. As we are talking it makes me realise that it has actually been a
couple of years since I have been in Europe or the UK and then this year I’ve managed to get
out for a couple of quick international trips just once to the states and in August, to the
wonderful Edmonton Blues Festival in Canada. But I would love to get back. I’d love to get back
out to the northern hemisphere, and I’d love to get back to Europe and the UK, so I’ve got my
fingers crossed. Send me any contacts I should be talking to because I’d love to be back playing

in your neck of the woods.

BiTS: Well, one final
question, you’ve played
to audiences all over the
world, literally, some
big, some small. Is there
any place that you’ve
played and any
circumstance that
you’ve been in where
you’ve thought to

yourself, good grief,
what am I doing here?
This is absolutely
wonderful.

FB: [Laughs] Well, look,
I’ve played some
fabulous festivals, I’ve got to say and off the top of my head in Europe, Switzerland and
Notodden in Norway is a wonderful festival. The Cognac Blues Festival in France, how
wonderful. All that and they give you a beautiful bottle of cognac. But I must say that for me,
some of the really special gigs have been paradoxically the ones with very small audiences but
it’s because of the place I’m playing and I would say places like playing Red’s juke joint in

Clarksdale, Mississippi because it is Red Paden, who runs that joint, has been a juke joint
runner for so long and that tradition runs deeply and not everybody would get a gig there. Red
has to like you and for him to invite me to play there and the last time I played there, actually,
he actually gave me one of his t-shirts and signed it after the show and Red does not give
compliments, he doesn’t give anything away lightly. So for me, that was a great thrill and
likewise playing at Teddy’s Juke Joint in Zachary, Louisiana, which is also a very traditional
funky black juke joint and I was thrilled actually to see that this year in the American Blues
Foundation Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, that Teddy, from Teddy’s Juke Joint, has been
honoured in this year's accolades. So yes, I think to be playing an American style music form