Review: Sue Foley ‘Live In Austin, Vol. 1’
By Nick Cristiano
“I’ve been on the road, I’ve been around,” Sue Foley sings. “I will love you better than your other girl can.”
You’d better believe it. That boast comes during Sue Foley’s rollicking blues number “Better,” and appears near the end of her new live album, the scorching Live in Austin, Vol. 1. That brash self-possession born of life experience links her to a chain of fiercely independent and strong-willed blueswomen going back to Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. And now, three decades after she left her native Canada and took Austin by storm in her early 20s, Foley continues to cement her place as one of the leading torchbearers of the blues tradition. Male or female.
The guitar-slinging firebrand has an intellectual side, so she knows all about that history. She has pursued a Ph.D. in musicology, has been an assistant professor of music, and has interviewed more than 100 subjects for a long-gestating book project called Guitar Women. But there’s nothing academic about her performing style. Foley delivers visceral thrills while flashing guitar chops that are as striking as her voice, an impossibly alluring instrument itself that can be playful, knowing, and biting, and oozes sex.
For her most recent studio album, Pinky’s Blues (the title refers to her pink paisley Telecaster), Foley recorded live in the studio in mostly a three-piece format. Live in Austin, recorded at the Continental Club, has a similar stripped-down setup, with Corey Keller on drums and Jon Penner returning on bass. This time, though, there’s also a second guitarist, Derek O’Brien, the Austin institution who coproduced Foley’s first two albums and, as she has told it, helped make her feel as if she belonged in the music hotbed that is the Texas capital.
The set opens with the straight-ahead blues of Foley’s own “New Used Car,” as she applies that seductive voice to a delicious double entendre. She takes two typically concise solos.
The double entendre, of course, is a blues staple. Witness, for example, Memphis Minnie’s “Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” which Foley takes for her own spin later in the set, playing with tempo shifts around the solo. And “Queen Bee,” a gender flip of the Slim Harpo swamp-blues classic “King Bee.” “I can buzz all night long,” she promises, sultry as ever.
“Walkin’ Home” is another original squarely in the blues tradition, a propulsive riffer with a stabbing solo. So is her gleeful romp through Howlin’ Wolf’s “Howlin’ for My Darlin’.” Oo-wee, indeed.
“New Used Car”
As much as Foley considers herself a blues artist, her music has always stretched the boundaries of the genre. (And this album doesn’t delve into any of her recent forays into flamenco guitar.) Her own “Highwayside” leans toward country-rock, with O’Brien taking a twangy solo. Her take on the folk-rock of Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” is not as bitter as the original, mixing some sadness with the recrimination to add poignancy, as underscored by the lyrical guitar solo and the long instrumental coda.
Speaking of instrumentals, Jodi Williams’ “Hooked on Love (Lucky Lou)” is a doozy of a showcase for Foley’s six-string talents, with liquid tones and notes stretched like Silly Putty, creating an intoxicating funhouse effect. And the album closes with Foley rocking through Cheap Trick’s “High Roller.”
If there is one fault, it’s that, Live In Austin, Vol 1 at 11 tracks, is too short. But as the title indicates with that “Vol. 1” appendage, more will be coming. And that’s good news, because Live in Austin offers further proof that, like the best blues artists, Foley is getting better with age, and it more than justifies the self-confidence she exudes in “Better” that allows her to proclaim her own worth.
Sue Foley website
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