THE AUSTIN BLUSER ON HOW HER AUDIENCES PLAY A ROLE IN HER SHOWS, AND HER UPCOMING TRIBUTE TO PIONEERING WOMEN GUITAR PLAYERS
By Jim Beaugez
NEWS + NOTES
THE FIRST TIME Sue Foley saw blues music performed live, she was taken fully by the relationship between the performer and the audience.
“The connection between the audience and the band was so key that the audience seemed to be creating the music, too, which is really quite magical,” she says. “I’m not sure audiences realize that they’re making the performance.”
Now, as a veteran blues musician herself, she gets to experience the phenomenon from the other side of the stage. Credit the fans who turned out for Foley’s May 2023 gig at the Continental Club in Austin, then, for the fiery guitar workout she gives on her first live album. Foley stacked the set list on the recently released Live in Austin Vol. 1, with classics from bluesmen Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon, as well as tunes penned by Bob Dylan and Cheap Trick alongside a few of her own.
Foley leaned on her tried-and-true pink paisley Fender Telecasters — the namesake of her 2021 studio set, Pinky’s Blues — plugged into her ’59 Bassman reissue with minimal stompboxes to create her tone on the album. “I’m based in Texas, and Texas is about tone,” she says. “You don’t get tone from pedals; you get it from your hands and by using a good, strong solid amp and a good guitar. If you don’t have good tone with
