Sue Foley picked up a guitar at age 13 in her native Canada. By age 20 she was touring the world. The next year she grabbed her #1 guitar “Pinky” and moved to the blues hotbed of Austin, Texas.
Countless miles and concerts later, Foley has reached the pinnacle of her profession, being nominated for her first Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. The well-reviewed One Guitar Woman is a tribute to female guitar players. Many of the women represented were pioneers of the blues, but flamenco, classical, Maybelle Carter’s “Carter Scratch”, and other styles are also represented here. “It didn’t happen overnight, I’ll tell you that,” Foley said. “To be quite honest, it’s really a lifetime of study of guitar. Some of the techniques I’ve been working on for years. Piedmont folk fingerpicking like Elizabeth Cotten, it’s a pretty complex way to play the guitar. You just kind of start hacking away at it. It takes a while to get comfortable to where you’re actually at performance level with those techniques because it’s a big stretch from the blues. I started working on flamenco stuff like a couple of decades ago.”
Cotten’s “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie” is one of the highlights of the collection. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ida Presti, Memphis Minnie, Lydia Mendoza, Geeshie Wiley, Charo, and Elvie Thomas are some of the other artists represented on the album. The songs themselves run the gamut of emotions and the stripped-down treatment on a nylon stringed flamenco guitar gives the record a timeless quality. Foley’s vocal and guitar mastery are a real treat. It’s no surprise that she has won four consecutive Blues Music Awards for Traditional Blues Female.
Foley will play two local dates this week. She will be headlining the South Orange International Blues Festival Winter edition at SOPAC on February 7 and will be at Iridium in New York on February 8. The first portion of the shows will feature Foley performing One Guitar Woman solo acoustic songs and telling stories about the female pioneers and then the band will get it cranked up with some electric blues. This is a chance to capture an elite blues artist in her prime.
Sue Foley “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie” (Elizabeth Cotten cover from One Guitar Woman):
Sue Foley “Maybelle’s Guitar” (Live – 12/14/24):
Sue Foley “Queen Bee” (From Live In Austin Vol. 1):
Sue Foley “Pinky’s Blues” (Live – 10/30/23):
