Sue Foley – Pinky's Blues

05-03-2022

Sue Foley (born March 29, 1968) is a Canadian blues guitarist and singer. Sue Foley is a Canadian guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader based in Austin, Texas. Her trademark instrument is a pink paisley Fender Telecaster. The legendary Canadian blues woman Sue Foley has an out-of-the-ordinary mastery of the guitar and blues vocabulary, as well as being a great songwriter and vocalist. With nearly thirty years of career and dozens of albums released, Foley has proved beyond a reasonable doubt why she deserves her prominent place in the modern blues rock scene. However, far from settling down, she introduces us to her brand new album, Pinky's Blues, named after her pink paisley Fender Telecaster. Armed with the iconic instrument and supported by drummer Chris Layton and bassist Jon Penner, Foley dwells in the Texas blues heritage and blazes through a clever assemblage of covers and originals, whose live in-studio sound was made even better by the expertise of producer Mike Flanigin and sound engineer Chris Bell. Let us probe the outcome of this enterprise by examining some of the songs. The album kickstarts with its title track. "Pinky's Blues" is a raw, gritty instrumental number filled with penetrating, wolfish lead guitar lines. A first-rate commencement that sets the tone for the following track, Angela Sthreli's "Two Bit Texas Town", a mid-tempo, effective blues rocker. The line "I remember Muddy Waters, Hoochie Coochie Man" denounces one of Foley's biggest influences. A similar circumstance occurs in the next track, the Foley original "Dallas Man". As suggested by its title, the song is a tribute to the great blues musicians that came from Dallas. Spirited and catchy, the song is one of the album's highlights. The slow blues heartbreak comes with another Angela Sthreli original. "Say It's Not So" features some magnificent guitar work as well as a very expressive vocal performance. The short, yet intense cut "When The Cat's Gone" ends the album on a high note. The 12-track Pinky's Blues is a strong offering that presents a fine selection of blues songs rooted in the Texas tradition, flavored with Sue Foley's magical touch. Certainly, a nice treat to any blues rock fan. "Pinky's Blues" is a raw, electric guitar driven romp through the backroads of Texas, with Foley's signature pink paisley Fender Telecaster, 'Pinky' at the wheel. "Pinky's Blues" is a guitar driven collection of 12 songs, both original and some of Sue's favourite covers, that demonstrate not only that Sue is one of the world's greatest Blues guitarists, but that the sheer joy of playing can be felt through the recording in an emotional thrill for the listener. A vinyl version of the album on hot pink provides a dream item for fans, audiophiles and collectors. Sue Foley has been riding a wave of success since "The Ice Queen" (2018). She won "Best Traditional Female (Koko Taylor Award)" at the 2020 Blues Music Awards in Memphis, was nominated for a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy), and she took home the award for "Best Guitar Player" at the Toronto Maple Blues Awards. Sue's last album "The Ice Queen" reached #4 on the Billboard Current Blues chart, #1 on RootsMusic Report's Top 50 Canada album chart and was in the Living Blues radio chart for four consecutive months, peaking at #2. Guests include Jimmie Vaughan who adds his signature guitar to the track"Hurricane Girl". This is Sue Foley putting out all blues material, some written by her and others rearranged classics. Jimmie Vaughan plays rhythm guitar on one track and there is a guest artist playing a Hammond B-3 organ on two tracks. The recording before this one was also excellent but not purely blues. Sue Foley's singing is getting better with each new recording and her trusty pink telecaster sounds as good as ever. If I had to guess I would say her singing has been influenced by Austin great Angela Strehli, who is another favorite of mine. If you have not heard Sue Foley before, she has great taste in blues and I highly recommend this release. Amazing. As blue as blue can get. Listening to this album will reveal just how smokey and humid the studio must have been to create this collection of old school blues. Sue certainly has the chops and her voice is infectious and in no time you'll be toe tapping, dancing and singing along, getting deeper and deeper into the blues. Sue is the real deal. It kicks off with a smoking instrumental, the title track "Pinky's Blues" and continues to impress throughout. The album is a solid blues album, and one of my favorites of her work thus far. Love the title of the album, and title track, "Pinky's Blues". I feel like I'm learning something new about the blues. Foley's version of the song "Two Bit Texas Town" really speaks to me though. The songwriter, Angela Strehli, is very underrated. I remember growing up in such a town and music taking me to that new place. Her songwriting takes me back. There were tubes in the radio. Sue Foley's guitar amp must have tubes in inside too. Tone ! They are hot ! You can feel 'em. You can dry your laundry on there. There are many great lady blues artists, who each have their own unique style. Then we have Sue. I count myself that I am extremely fortunate in having all of Sue's previous albums. In the past there have been some folk that have questioned the strength of Sue's voice for the blues ?. To those folk,I say this with the greatest respect, have you truly listened to Sue's voice ?. Many of the past legends who sang the blues did not need to blast their voice to the point of shattering glass, to sing the blues. So then we come to Sue's voice. When I listen to her voice, it sends shivers up and down my back. It is sensual, seductive and encompasses a range,that if she wished to, could belt out a song. Sue is blues player through and through. This album could be described as "delta blues ". There are also some tracks that you could say are pure,"boogie woogie". The moment the first track starts, I promise you, you will want to get up and boogie woogie. I am not the best dancer in the world, but as soon I started listening, yes folks,I did do a bit of a dancing around. Thank goodness I was on my own at the time. When it comes to Sue's guitar playing, she is up there with the best. Again, Sue has her own unique playing style. Like all great guitarists, Sue makes it sound effortless. Thus her guitar is an extention and part of herself. Anyone who has spent time listening to Canada-born, Austin-based guitar slinger Sue Foley knows "Pinky" is her signature paisley-print pink Fender Telecaster. Pinky's Blues is her second offering for Stony Plain. Foley and her band, bassist Jon Penner, drummer Chris Layton (of Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble fame), and Hammond B-3 organist, producer Mike Flanigin, got together with engineer Chris Bell over three days in a San Marcos, Texas studio and cut these 12 tracks live on the floor. Foley's focus is the Texas blues and the artists who embody them in a set of covers and originals. She captures the Lone Star blues styles with raw energy, passion, and stellar musicianship. Foley penned the title-track instrumental, a sweet, swinging, slow blues with stinging leads and lyric phrasing. It's followed by "Two Bit Texas Town," one of two tunes by Angela Strehli. It's a swamp blues shout-out that name-checks blues heroes. When Foley sings "Back when radio/Could turn your life around/I know what it did to me." she's singing its truth as her own, adding snarling fills and a cracking snare shuffle. Foley's riff in "Dallas Man" is equal parts Slim Harpo, Johnny Winter, and ZZ Top. She shifts gears on Strehli's glorious "Say It Ain't So." Over the band's sweet, simmering, vintage R&B groove, Foley's delivers the lyrics with aching tenderness. Her guitar accents, fills, and solo are melodic and committed. On Lavelle White's "Stop These Teardrops," Foley's voice rides the lyric into the guitar boogie as Flanigin's organ fills paint the margins. "Boogie Real Low" is a revised reading of Frankie Lee Sims' 1957 roadhouse jump blues "She Likes to Boogie." Foley rocks it up with blazing lead breaks, a sexy vocal, and a fingerpopping vamp. She reveals her love of vintage Texas R&B again in Lillie Mae Donley's 1962 hit "Think it Over." Guided by Flanigin's B-3, Foley summons all the pathos and desperation in the original and injects it with a gritty underbelly that heightens the emotional tumult. Clarence Gatemouth Brown's seminal "Okie Dokie Stomp" finds Foley's fat, sweeping chord boogie meeting the rhythm section head and nearly burns the joint down. The original "Hurricane Girl" features guest Jimmie Vaughan on rhythm guitar. Inspired by Elmore James' signature slide boogie, Foley celebrates her musical and character bona fides as a force of nature. Two tracks are only available on CD and via the LP's download card, including a Texas-sized version of Willie Dixon's "When the Cat Is Gone, The Mice Play," (written for Junior Wells in 1965; it copies the vamp from the Chicago singer's 1960 hit "Messin' with the Kid"). The band digs deep into its slippery, bubbling groove and brings the record home. Pinky's Blues is unruly, wooly, joyful, and unprocessed. Its looseness is possible because Foley enlisted musicians who know the tradition and trust one another to deliver it with unvarnished intensity, without artifice.

1 Pinky's Blues 4:15

2 Two Bit Texas Town 3:46

3 Dallas Man 3:30

4 Southern Men 3:08

5 Say It's No So 4:43

6 Hurricane Girl 3:43

7 Stop These Teardrops 3:26

8 Boogie Real Low 2:54

9 Think It Over 3:41

10 Okie Dokie Stomp 2:43

11 Someday 4:08

12 When The Cat's Gone The Mice Play 2:29