Sue Foley

Sue Foley, a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader from Canada, has made her home in Austin, Texas, where her signature pink paisley Fender Telecaster remains a constant companion onstage and in the studio. She launched her recording career with the 1992 release Young Girl Blues on Antone's Records, an album that earned widespread praise among blues critics, and followed it a year later with Without a Warning. At a moment when few women were fronting bands with searing lead guitar, Foley stood out for the sharp, inventive phrasing that defined her early work. After moving to Shanachie for the 1998 album Ten Days in November, she returned to Canada; there, Love Comin' Down captured a Juno Award in 2000. That same period saw her begin Guitar Woman, a long-term archival project built on interviews with many of the world's foremost female guitarists. Between 2001 and 2008 she produced articles, curated concerts, and advanced work on a related book, all while issuing the well-received Where the Action Is in 2002. She then joined Germany's Ruf Records, which issued Change in 2004 and the widely celebrated New Used Car in 2006. In 2007 she joined labelmates Deborah Coleman and Roxanne Potvin for the collaborative album Time Bomb. Guitar Woman went on hiatus after 2008 as Foley recorded two duet projects for Blind Pig—He Said, She Said with Peter Karp in 2010 and Beyond the Crossroads in 2012—while completing a graduate degree. She resettled in Austin in 2018 and delivered The Ice Queen on Stony Plain that year; she also joined Billy Gibbons, Jimmie Vaughan, and organist Mike Flanigin in the occasional supergroup known as the Jungle. Pinky's Blues appeared in 2021, followed in 2023 by Live in Austin, Vol. 1 on her own Blues Woman imprint. With One Guitar Woman: A Tribute to Female Pioneers of Guitar, released in 2024, she shifted direction entirely, performing twelve solo acoustic covers drawn from the catalogs of Elizabeth Cotten, Maybelle Carter, Lydia Mendoza, Geeshie Wiley, and other trailblazing women.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1968, Foley spent her childhood captivated by her father's guitar. She began playing at thirteen after discovering the blues through the Rolling Stones and other roots-rock acts, and she played her first paid engagement at sixteen. Following high school she moved to Vancouver, formed the Sue Foley Band, and toured extensively with Mark Hummel, logging roughly three hundred shows across the United States, Canada, and Europe in 1989 alone. While sitting in with Duke Robillard at the W.C. Handy Awards in Memphis that year, she caught the attention of Austin club owner Clifford Antone. A demo tape sent to Antone's Records in 1990 led to an audition and a contract; she relocated to Texas, and Young Girl Blues emerged in 1992 to strong notices from blues publications and the start of nonstop international touring. Without a Warning followed in 1994, Big City Blues in 1995, and A Walk in the Sun in 1996. After Ten Days in November on Shanachie, she moved back to Canada, became a mother, finished her graduate studies in gender studies, and earned a Juno for Love Comin' Down. Back to the Blues surfaced in 2000, and Where the Action Is, her last Shanachie release, arrived in 2002 and garnered multiple Maple Leaf awards—she ultimately holds the record with seventeen. Signing with Ruf Records, she issued Change in 2004 and New Used Car in 2006, the latter frequently cited by critics and scholars as a singular statement from a blues guitarist. She later accepted a teaching post at Catawba College in North Carolina and resumed active work on Guitar Woman.

The 2007 release Time Bomb, recorded with Coleman and Potvin, took the trio on sold-out North American dates. Foley then stepped away from Guitar Woman in 2009 to focus on family, academics, and her performing career. Her partnership with Peter Karp began when his manager proposed her for a duet that ultimately did not appear on his album yet sparked an extended correspondence; those exchanges eventually supplied material for He Said, She Said, which reached number ten on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. Beyond the Crossroads continued the collaboration in 2012. In 2015 a message from Mike Flanigin, a former Austin running partner now established as a Hammond B-3 player alongside Jimmie Vaughan and Billy Gibbons, prompted her return to the city for Antone's 2016 anniversary celebration. Flanigin subsequently produced Pinky's Blues at Fire Station Studios in San Marcos with engineer Chris Bell, drummer Chris Layton, and bassist Jon Penner. The sessions, completed in three days without overdubs, yielded covers of Lavelle White's "Stop These Teardrops," Frankie Lee Sims' "Boogie Real Low," Lillie Mae Donley's "Think It Over," Angela Strehli's "Two Bit Texas Town," and three originals, among them the single "Dallas Man." Released by Stony Plain in October 2021, the album was followed in 2023 by Live in Austin, Vol. 1, a trio recording with drummer Corey Keller, bassist Jon Penner, vocalists Angela Miller and Lauren Cervantes, and guitarist Derek O'Brien that mixed Foley originals with covers such as Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" and Willie Dixon's "Howlin' for My Darlin'."

During the 2020 pandemic shutdown Foley received the Koko Taylor Award for Best Traditional Female Blues Artist and captured her seventeenth Maple Leaf Award for Guitar Player while also earning a Juno nomination. She resumed live work across Europe and North America, and in 2024 she completed the all-acoustic One Guitar Woman tribute.