Sue Foley: A Witness to Certainty in a World Gone Mad

Sue Foley
Old Dog Tavern
Blues Bash Live 2022
Kalamazoo, MI
July 16, 2022

It was a variation on what one might see at a contemporary classical music concert. Lots of grey heads, lawn chairs, not much movement. But there were numbers, lots of them, out to see and hear live music, outdoors, at one of Kalamazoo's best, most congenial night spots for evening entertainment. A kind of latter-day Woodstock generation of almost-mostly white folk (it turned out to be a fairly mixed crowd) with an obvious appetite for good music, good food and good beer.

Accolades: At the 43rd annual Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Sue Foley won for Best Traditional Blues Album with Pinky's Blues (Stony Plain, 2021) and the Koko Taylor Award for Traditional Blues Female Artist, repeating her 2020 win in the same category; and the Maple Blues Award for Entertainer of the Year and Guitarist of the Year from the Toronto Blues Society.

All this before I'd ever even heard of her.

Then Sue came to Kalamazoo.

Foley is Texas blues—by way of Canada, ending up in Austin—with her signature pink paisley Fender Telecaster, "Pinky," "at the wheel." A trio, the band also includes Jon Penner on bass and drummer Chris "Whipper" Layton. Her sexy swagger prevailing, she kinda reminded me of peer Samantha Fish, her brash, assertive stage presence more than supported by a whiplashing combination of style, technique and good looks.

Part of the charm of this gig was witnessing the presence of a raffle, where the winner happily won all of $246. Yes, this was a down-home bunch, white as all get-out, but with color and spirit to spare.

It was the second time Old Dog Tavern hosting what used to be the longstanding Kalamazoo Blues Festival, presented by the Kalamazoo Valley Blues Association, and after the onset of COVID.

Foley's trio kicked things off with some kind of medium-tempo blues instrumental, showing off the band's obvious kinetic and sympathetic energy. It was as if Foley was telling the assembled masses that she should first be heard as a guitarist, an instrumentalist, first, the rockabilly, sexy stuff to follow. Was it "Pinky Blues"? One thing that became apparent early on: there was no need for a keyboard player, a harp player, backup singers; Sue Foley, with her rhythm section in tow, was more than capable of staying the course.

It was a balmy night, not hot, as the sun slowly set on the far side of the stage, the traffic on both sides, the trains mercifully few on the crossbow, people mainly in their seats if not roaming, others, myself included, induced to wander up close to the stage to see this wonder woman of the blues in her all-black outfit of slacks and trimmed upper wear ply her blues wares earnestly, at one point playing her guitar behind her back, a la T-Bone Walker. This woman knew her place, she was a witness to certainty in a world gone mad.

Maybe more of what I remember about Sue Foley's performance was her overall sit-down way of carrying herself onstage, a woman in 21st-century America talking out loud about the freedom that a woman can bring to the stage, a kind of latter-day Bessie Smith, a child of Bonnie Raitt, grinding out her blues loud but not too loud, playing it slow but not too slow, boogieing up, working the crowd to the crowd's obvious delight.

As a lover of jazz, my appreciation of Sue Foley extended to experiencing her finger-style technique, along with her feet-moving eye contact, her urgent and sultry voice that spoke to an unrequited yearning, not to mention the surf-guitar kind of echo-plex with her power trio approach.

Call it swagger at a time when it seems in short supply by so many that could be considered the doubting masses in an era of major divisions, Sue Foley's brand, and it is a brand, of sorts, is also in short supply. Reminiscent of fellow Texan Willie Nelson, she reminds me of that confidence hard-won from humility that can only be found from some hard place that most of us don't want to approach.

Yes, she was Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Bonnie Raitt unleashed, full of jazz chords, up-tempo shuffle instrumentals, forging ahead in front of an at times indifferent crowd.

As a soloist on acoustic guitar, performing an encore, her closer was a slow blues, "Careless Love," which, instead of brandishing with her tantalizing Telecaster, she offered us her vocal prowess. She knew she had those front-row fans who never left, her Saturday night partners. Slow, easy, the music was reminding them, if not us, why they came out in the first place, her singing bellowing like a reincarnation of a transformed Judy Garland, both soft and exclamatory. It was front porch, with all the time in the world, the woman's kind words talking to the crowd.

Seemingly indifferent to that crowd, Foley with rhythm section, does a kind of Wes Montgomery, samba instrumental, still sitting down. It's an instrumental, pacing be damned, in the spirit of Peter Green and "Black Magic Woman." She doesn't need to sing because her chops are already there! This is the transcendent moment before the climax. It's a return to rockabilly, assertive, with that reoccurring surfer vibe. encompassing a wider world of pop music influences, not to mention playing behind her back.

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