The Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society has named Box & Dice artist Fiona Boyes the 2015 Artist of the Year! Here is her reaction:

While I was on the road last weekend, the news came through that I’d just won the MBAS Victorian & Tasmanian Blues Music Awards ‘Artist of the Year’. Home again, at last, and admiring the beautiful trophy, I’m reflecting on the importance of heroes and mentors in the Blues life. It means a great deal to me that this award is given in memory of Dutch Tilders and sponsored by the Tilders Family.

Dutch used to sign off with: ‘Keep the Faith’. Faith has an eternal sense to it and nicely encapsulates the tension between tradition and innovation that I think is at the heart of the Blues. When I first discovered the music (long before I was actually a player) I listened avidly to a lot of classic country Blues. But it is one thing to hear the music you love on a record or a CD, quite another to experience it in person. Dutch was the first musician I ever saw & heard playing that finger-pickin’ Blues LIVE – it was profoundly immediate, exciting and inspiring.

I thought, “if I could only ever play like that!” Well, we can only ever play like ourselves as it turns out – but I am very grateful for Dutch’s support over the years, for his inspiration and now, for this award that bears his name.

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