Sue Foley is a feisty, red-headed, electric blues guitarist who doesn't always look before she leaps. Born in Ottawa as the youngest of five children in a working-class family, she migrated to Austin, Texas, in the early '90s, then bounced back to rural Ontario before the birth of her son 11 years ago. She has studied flamenco guitar and plays it around the house a lot, but rarely in concert. "It's too damn hard," she said honestly.
But for the past 16 months, Foley has been e-mailing with Nashville-based singer/songwriter/pianist Peter Karp, trading ideas and collaborating on tunes. The plan is to take some members of her band and Karp's band and meet in a midway spot -- actually, the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on Sunday -- to play a couple of sets of mostly acoustic music and see what happens.
"I'm at a point in my life where I just believe in making quality work, shooting for the stars and exploring my curiosity, things that drive me," said Foley -- who'll be playing that flamenco guitar.
Foley, who turns 40 this month, has another labor of love that has been driving her for about seven years now: a book about female guitarists. She's done more than 80 interviews, ranging from rocker Suzi Quatro to classical music's Sharon Isbin, and all points in between. (Her website Guitarwoman.com has a complete list of interviews and updated information about the project.)
"I've obviously paid attention to these women guitar players my whole career and I realized very little has been written about them," she said by phone from her home in Canada. "My peers and people I think of as trailblazers don't get mentioned and I thought, 'This is crazy. These are unique people whose stories need to be told.'
"I didn't take it on to prove some angry agenda; I am just inspired by the project. There is a feminine side to playing guitar. I've played with a lot of men and a lot of women, and women are more mutually respectful and less competitive, more nurturing. Now there are some times when we all like to burn, to play aggressively. But there are some feminine sensibilities a lot of guys overlook that could enhance their musicianship. I want to hear a guy cry on the guitar sometimes."
Story of the blues
The way Foley herself is often miscategorized demonstrates the need for her book. The blues is a storytelling tradition in which continuing the thread spun by one's stylistic forebears counts for as much as originality. While Foley's intricate fingering and serpentine phrases recall country blues, her rock-inflected passion and electricity point toward postwar Chicago-style blues. Consequently, blues enthusiasts often cite T-Bone Walker, and occasionally Gatemouth Brown and Slim Harpo, as her primary influences.
