On her first North American tour, Australia’s rousing singer and propulsive electric guitarist draws on Down Under blues and follows her heart
BY ALEXANDER VARTY | Stir magazine
ALTHOUGH SHE’S ESSENTIALLY unknown in North America, Minnie Marks has already established herself as a triple-threat force at home in Australia. An uplifting, energetic singer and driving, propulsive electric guitarist, she’s also got a secret weapon—but we’ll get to that later. What we want to talk about first is some music that she hasn’t yet recorded, which is definitely going to add depth and singularity to her already considerable appeal.
You can get a taste of what that music might sound like by going online and seeking out Marks’s 2022 performance at the Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival. Sixteen-odd minutes into a set of hard-driving blues numbers about sleeping rough and drinking dangerously, she shifts gears and slips into “Bag of Bones”, a beautifully rough-edged fingerstyle number that posits music itself as the best kind of adventure. “Something about it just takes me away,” Marks sings, making it obvious that not only is the stage her natural environment, she’s also a talent on par with the ’60s icons that were her initial inspiration.
