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the age of 28 and I think by the time I was 30, I’d had my midlife crisis early and quit my job
and jumped in head first [chuckling].

BiTS: [Laughing] That’s very brave.

FB: Or crazy or both [chuckles].

BiTS: I know that you play mostly what we’ll call for the benefit of an argument, solo now,
but you did work with a band
The only Australian musician ever to be recognised in for a while, didn’t you – The
the American Blues Foundation (Memphis) ‘Blues Music Mojos?
Awards’. She has had 8 nominations, including 2019
’Traditional Female Artist of the Year’. Performances FB: Well yes, I still have a band,
featuring guitars, vocals and unique cigar box although, of course, I do play a
instruments. She is an International recording artist lot of solo stuff and as you said,
and touring musician and has done shows in more than when you play fingerstyle
20 countries. blues, I started there and I still
do it and I think it’s very
demanding to try and play a little bit of rhythm guitar, a little bit of the bass lines, a little bit
of the melody and if you’re not playing you should be singing and if you’re not singing and
playing, you should be talking.

So it’s a wonderfully demanding style of blues but over the years I have also had in tandem
with my solo work, I’ve generally had a band and I started off with a band called The Mojos
and we were mainly playing in the 90s through to the early 2000s and that was significant,
particularly in Melbourne where I grew up because it was an all-female blues band and
certainly when I became a fan of the music and started going out to see all sorts of local
bands, as well as every American touring artist that came out that I could manage to see,
there was just not many women. You know, in fact, at the time there was one female player
who was our first bass player with The Mojos, but beyond that, there were no role models

for women playing blues at the time and The Mojos came out of a group of women, we all
realised we knew each other from going to see bands all the time and we realised we had a
fledging band on different instruments and so we banded together and started a group as
much because we were all so passionate about the music, but also it was a way of supporting
each other.

BiTS: You won the International Blues Challenge as the solo artist, I think, in 2003. What
was that like? It must have been quite an experience for you.

FB: It was an incredible experience. The funny thing was that it was actually much more
nerve-racking doing the competition playoffs in Melbourne. It’s always weird when you
compete in your hometown because it’s hard to be a prophet in your hometown. These are
people who’ve seen you growing as a musician, so they’ve seen your first fumbling attempts
[laughs] to play a solo or something. So I was actually quite nervous. I think also, I
consciously avoided situations where I was in competition with other players and I think
women often feel a bit judged, not only by men, by other women and I’d played solo and then
I’d played with The Mojos which was the all-female band where I was the only guitarist. But I
always avoided that very competitive ethos that a lot of guitarists have, so it took quite a lot
of encouragement from my now husband, who said, look you really should go in the
competition and as it turned out I won and that gave me the right to represent my Blues
Society in Memphis at the International Blues Challenge and I’d never even been to America
before, so everything was new. Everything was fresh. I was very conscious that I was playing