In her recent appearance at The Hamilton Live, Sue Foley honored and extended the traditions of the blues. The native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, who has spent most of her life in Austin, showed off her incredible guitar skills in both a solo acoustic set and an electric set with her band.
Foley’s most recent album, One Guitar Woman, was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album at the recent Grammy Awards. On the album, Foley, with just her acoustic guitar, plays songs in a variety of styles from female guitar pioneers who influenced her development as a player. The album, she says, “jumps around to different styles, but it’s all done with a blues player’s sensibility.”
At The Hamilton Live on Feb. 6, Sue opened the show with an intimate presentation of several of these songs, beginning with Elizabeth Cotten’s “Babe, It Ain’t No Lie.” She described this piece as being in a “really fun style of guitar to play.” Cotten is perhaps most famous for her composition “Freight Train.” She was discovered when she was working as a housekeeper for the musically prolific Seeger family. (There are a few details about this in Peggy Seeger’s memoir, First Time Ever.)
Introducing Memphis Minnie’s “In My Girlish Days,” Foley said, “All these women have fascinating stories, but Minnie is kind of a mystery.” She continued, “The only way to know Minnie is through the words of the songs.” Foley later circled back to Minnie, who she said was “the impetus for this whole project,” and played “Nothin’ In Ramblin.”
Next up was “Mal Hombre.” Written by Lydia Mendoza, the lyrics were originally in Spanish; Sue translated them so she could sing it in English. Mendoza’s family, she explained, were migrants who traveled and played shows to entertain migrant workers.
One of the most influential guitarists in country music is the Carter Family’s Mother Maybelle, who invented a style that’s come to be known as the Carter Scratch. “I learned a little bit of Carter Scratch for this one,” Foley said before playing “Maybelle’s Guitar.”
For someone who is committed to the blues as Foley is, you might be surprised to learn that Charo was a huge influence on her, as she was the first female guitarist she ever saw. Showing off her versatility as a guitarist, Sue played the traditional Spanish instrumental “Malaguena.”
Watch Sue Foley discuss the influence of Charo on YouTube:
With her band backing her, Sue came back to deliver a more rock-inflected set of covers and originals. She played Lavelle White’s “Stop These Teardrops,” Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House Is a Rockin’,” Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Okie-Dokie Stomp,” and the Blasters’ “Barefoot Rock.” The SRV cover was especially meaningful for her band as her drummer is the stepson of Stevie’s writing partner, Doyle Bramhall II.
The electric set kicked off with the title cut of her 2020 album Pinky’s Blues, which takes its from her signature guitar and its color. She dedicated “New Used Car” to “all you used car salesmen.” “The Ice Queen” played upon her heritage in the Great White North, while “Queen Bee” is a sort of response song to the blues classic “I’m A King Bee.” The set also included “Dallas Man,” “Fool’s Gold,” and “Mediterranean Breakfast.” She closed the electric set “Hurricane Girl,” which complemented “The Ice Queen” in describing herself as a force of nature; I have no doubt she is — those redheads always are! For her encore, she treated the entrance to “a little West-side soul from Chicago” in the form of “Chicago Blues.”
Whether she’s playing electric or acoustic, Sue Foley shows again and again that she’s as skillful an interpreter of the blues tradition as anyone working today. Any lover of the blues owes it to themselves to check her out.
Here are some photos of Sue Foley performing at The Hamilton Live on Feb. 6, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of James Todd Miller.
