Sue Foley, One Guitar Woman

Record Review

Sue Foley has been nominated for a Grammy in the category Best Traditional Blues Album for her new release, One Guitar Woman.

Foley is a veteran blues guitarist who plays in a Texas blues style. A Canadian who moved to Austin, Texas, she has been playing the blues professionally since she got out of high school. While putting out hard rocking albums, jamming with Billy Gibbons and Jimmie Vaughan and writing songs she has also been researching women in blues history. This all-acoustic album is a result. Here Foley covers a dozen songs as recorded, for the most part, by early blues women. She is not only paying respect to these pioneers of the blues but playing material she truly loves and is passionate about.

Foley covers songs by Elizabeth Cotton, Memphis Minnie, and The Carter Family, featuring Maybelle Carter on guitar, as well as sister Rosetta Tharpe and Charo. Other artists covered here are the lesser-known Elvie Thomas, Geeshie Wiley, and Clara Schumann. Well-known songs like Memphis Minnie’s Nothing in Rambling and Elizabeth Cotton’s Freight Train are featured as well as lesser-known delights. Foley sings one original song, Maybelle’s Guitar, an homage and a pastiche of Maybelle Carter’s guitar licks.

I was fortunate enough to see Foley in concert this autumn, and she mentioned how much work it took to master these disparate and foundational acoustic guitar styles. “It took years,” she mentioned from the stage, “and in some cases, decades.” This album is a product of passion, scholarship, and prodigious musical mastery. This is subtle and powerful acoustic blues music.

Seeing Foley perform these songs in live settings is transformational. Her normal blues-rock singing voice is warmer and softer while performing with her custom-made Mexican acoustic guitar. She treats this music with the utmost respect and it sounds like it is coming straight from the center of her heart. There is nothing flashy about her performances here, but these songs are played with a deftness and attention to detail that draws the listener into her vision.

There is also a classical piece composed by Clara Schumann, wife of the famous composer Robert Schumann. In addition, there is a song popularized by Charo, the blonde performer and musician who became well-known as a talk-show guest throughout the 1960s, where she played the part of a ditzy blonde. She was entertaining and funny. She often capped off these performances by playing a flamenco guitar tune, La Malaguena. Underneath her ditzy act was a masterful flamenco guitarist with wonderful musical chops. Foley pays her respect with this version of La Malaguena.

Sue Foley has been championing female musicians for years. Her series of interviews with women guitarists, published periodically in Guitar Player magazine, highlights her dedication. She has a book, Guitar Women: Life Lessons from Forty Six-String Heroines, based on these interviews which will be forthcoming in the spring of 2025.

One Guitar Woman is a masterful record that will find a warm welcome anywhere. It is not just for blues fans, but blues fans will find much to appreciate here. I hope she wins her well-deserved Grammy. Sue Foley, who has dedicated her life to the blues and women in blues, has genuinely reached iconic status with this, her masterwork.