Dave Specter is the co-owner of Space, the live music venue north of Chicago. He is an accomplished blues guitarist in his own right and is doing what he can to keep the blues alive in the home of the electric blues. Those vital signs were particularly strong this past week when Specter welcomed the amazingly talented and internationally acclaimed electric blues artist Sue Foley to his stage.
The Canadian expat who has called Austin her home for over thirty years stopped in Chicago to support her two most recent albums – One Guitar Woman, released on March 29th, and Live in Austin Vol. 1, released last October. The latter album debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Top US Blues Albums chart, while the former impressively debuted at No. 3.
As Foley herself explained at the show, the albums provide “two pictures and many faces of Sue Foley.” Live in Austin Vol. 1 is a full band album of electric blues, while One Guitar Woman is a solo acoustic album that pays tribute to the female pioneers of guitar who inspired Foley, such as Elizabeth Cotton, Memphis Minnie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ida Presti, Geeshie Wiley, Elvie Thomas, Lydia Mendoza, Charo, and Maybelle Carter.
Apropos of the album’s title, Foley plays each of the twelve tracks on a single acoustic guitar – a nylon-string Flamenco guitar that she bought in 2022 from a master luthier in Paracho, Mexico. Despite the single guitar, however, Foley is no one trick pony. The album beautifully and expertly covers a wide-range of musical stylings from folk, blues, French classical, Tejano, Flamenco and country – each one a different guitar style that, according to Foley, allows her to take “little journeys through different cultures through the lives of different female icons of guitar.” It’s a journey that any listener will not soon forget and will surely want to retake time and time again.
As beautiful as the album is, witnessing Foley perform some of the songs live was an even better treat. She opened her show at Space solo, playing six songs from the album. She began with “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie,” followed by “In My Girlish Days” from her favorite artist, Memphis Minnie. She then sang a version of Lydia Mendoza’s classic Tejano song “Mal Hombre,” but reworked it because Mendoza only sang in Spanish. Rewriting the verses in English, keeping the Spanish chorus and adding a guitar solo to make it her own, Foley described her take on the song as that of an older woman looking back compared to Mendoza who was only 18 when she recorded the song. Foley nailed it.
She finished out her set of One Guitar Woman songs with “Motherless Child Blues,” “Maybelle’s Guitar” (a tribute to Maybelle Carter and her famous “Carter Scratch”), and “La Malaguena.” The latter was a mesmerizing Flamenco tribute to the first woman Foley ever saw play guitar: Charo.
Switching gears, Foley then welcomed her full band to the stage, along with her trusted, late-‘80s pink paisley Fender Telecaster, “Pinky,” which is now clearly emblazoned with the signature of the great Jimmy Vaughn. This other “picture” of Foley was just as striking as the first as she launched into three songs showcased on Live in Austin Vol. 1 – a cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” followed by “Queen Bee,” and the grooving instrumental “Hooked on Love (AKA Lucky Lou).” She then gave the crowd a little flavor of the Texas blues with “Dallas Man” and “Stop These Teardrops,” two rollicking numbers from her 2021 album Pinky’s Blues.
Foley closed out her main set with “Fool’s Gold” and “Ice Queen” from the 2018 release, The Ice Queen, “New Used Car” from the 2006 release of the same name, “Barefoot Rock,” “Hurricane Girl” from Pinky’s Blues, and a killer cover of Ray Charles’ “What I’d Say.”
For the encore, Foley welcomed Specter to the stage to exchange licks on the Earl Hooker tune “Blue Guitar.” The two then jammed with the night’s opening act, Nikki O’Neil, playing “You Belong to Me” by Chicago’s own Magic Sam. It was not only a climatic end to the evening, but further proof that the blues remain alive in Chicago.
For more information on Sue Foley, her latest albums and upcoming tour dates, head to her website.
All images: © Derek Smith / High Voltage Concert Photography for American Blues Scene
