With his fiery, agile harmonica playing and trademark booming vocals, Warrnambool’s Eddy Boyle has made a name for himself as a genuine blues performer.
Boyle said his love of the blues sprang from the very earliest moments of his life.
“I was a premature baby, 15 weeks premature, and when my mother used to visit the nursery (at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital) they would often play proper, traditional 50s rock and roll, like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard,” he said.
“They said they did that as a way to stimulate the babies, so I think that probably had some effect on me musically.
“I was probably four, I was mucking up one day and they said here, take this harmonica, blow on it, just to distract me. The next day my dad got this old harmonica compilation and I heard She’s Tough by Jerry McCain.
“I heard the lyrics and the harmonica solo and thought ‘I want to do that’. At four years old I figured out that was something I wanted to do, and that kicked it off, really.”
Boyle taught himself harmonica from then on, eventually taking lessons from a local blues player in Warrnambool. His career officially started when played an open mic night at age 14 and found himself invited to play a gig the next night.
A couple of years later his dad encouraged him to introduce himself to Chris Wilson at Narooma Blues Festival, and before he knew it he was travelling to Geelong every week for lessons.
“He could tell that I had a real interest in the knowledge of the blues and harmonica history, and we got to be really good friends,” Boyle said.
He began performing with Wilson and musicians of the calibre of Shannon Bourne and Joe Camilleri, in Geelong, Warrnambool and further afield.
Boyle said more than a genre of music, the blues were a feeling.
“It’s a very spiritual thing and that’s what attracts me,” he said.
“Those guys (playing and writing blues music), quite often they were living a hard life. They weren’t just pulling that out of the bag, they were living everyday situations like that.”
Eddy & the Exciters are at Beav’s Bar from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday, October 13.
