Sue Foley ranges wide, stylistically, at South Orange International Blues Fest

JOHN MULLER

Sue Foley performs at The South Orange Performing Arts Center, Feb. 7.

Three songs into her set at The South Orange International Blues Fest at The South Orange Performing Arts Center, Feb. 7, Sue Foley offered the show’s biggest departure from blues and blues-rock business-as-usual, playing impressively authentic-sounding flamenco-style guitar on a solo, instrumental version of the traditional song “La Malagueña.” She used Charo’s arrangement, and said the song was intended as an homage to Charo, who was the first woman she saw “really play” a guitar.

“I knew I was going to be a guitar player from the time I was a little girl,” said the Ottawa-born Foley, who has been based in Austin, Texas, for more than 30 years. “My dad played, my older brothers played. There were guitars all over the house, and I was always musical, always singin’. So I saw those guitars and all the posters of the guys on the walls with guitars, you know, posing. Like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix and Clapton, and ZZ Top. All the stuff my brothers were into.

“And I was like, ‘Well, that’s great. I guess I’m going to play guitar, too. But where are the girls?’ Back then, you could count them on one hand. When they’d appear, I would go, ‘Well, there’s one … there’s one.’ And all through the years, it’s been sort of a lifetime study for me.”

Foley put that lifetime of study to good use on her 2024 album One Guitar Woman, which included “La Malagueña” and other songs written by or associated with female guitar players, and earned her her first Grammy nomination, in the Traditional Blues Album category.

She opened her performance at The South Orange International Blues Fest — which also featured Alexis P. Suter and Rae Simone, as well as a free late-afternoon event in the SOPAC Loft, in which singer Beareather Reddy and her band paid tribute to pioneering blues singer and bandleader Ma Rainey — with two other solo acoustic songs from One Guitar Woman. First, Elizabeth Cotten’s “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie,” and then Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing in Rambling.” After “La Malagueña,” she switched to electric guitar and brought out her backing group, the Pistolas — bassist John Penner and drummer Chris Hunter — for a set that combined classics like “Rock Me Baby” and “Okie Dokie Stomp” with her own compositions, including “Dallas Man,” “Fool’s Gold” and the slow and sultry “The Ice Queen.” There was lots of fiery guitar work on virtually every number.

JOHN MULLER

Sue Foley and bassist John Penner at The South Orange Performing Arts Center.

Before her cover of the rousing Stevie Ray Vaughan song “The House Is Rockin’,” she mentioned that Hunter is the stepson of the song’s co-writer, Doyle Bramhall. And during her set-closing cover of The Blasters’ “Barefoot Rock,” she turned her back to the audience, held her guitar behind her head and played it there, in true guitar-hero style.

There was also another musical change-of-pace that was almost as startling as “La Malagueña,” featuring Mike Griot — who organized the festival, and who is a member of the excellent Jersey-based band Blues People — on bass. Foley and Griot last played together on 2007, on the Blues Caravan package tour.

“It was an epic adventure of a lifetime,” Foley remembered. “There was some crazy stuff. There were a lot of people. We had 13 people on a tour bus. And about 10 of them didn’t get along. No, nine. Nine. Me, Mike and Billy (McClellan) the drummer got along. … so we really bonded.”

In South Orange, Foley and Griot played together on “Mediterranean Breakfast,” an instrumental that Foley wrote and recorded for her 2005 Love Comin’ Down album. It’s a moody, atmospheric, leisurely paced song; it almost sounds like it could be the theme song for Spaghetti Western movie, or something like that.

Even though Griot was added for the song, Penner remained on his own bass, as well. Foley said it was the first time, in her long career, that she has performed with two bassists, and joked that it was her “Spinal Tap moment.” But it was actually about as different from Spinal Tap as you could imagine: A sophisticated musical journey by a quartet of virtuosos (Hunter played on it as well), and a break from the more urgent tone of the blues-rock music that Foley played throughout most of the rest of the show. You can watch a video of it, below.

In their opening sets, Alexis P. Suter and Rae Simone showcased their remarkably strong and distinctive voices. And the Ma Rainey tribute — co-presented by The North Jersey Blues Society and Blues Alive — was a nice bonus. It featured Reddy and a sharp three-piece band (Charles Apicella on guitar and banjo, Avery Sharpe on bass and Steve Johns on drums) in an engaging combination of Rainey material and other blues standards, with some educational discussion of Rainey added to the mix.

Nobody made a big deal about it, but all the bands at this festival were fronted by women. Things really have changed since the time when Foley was young, and looked around the musical landscape, and wondered, “But where are the girls?”

JOHN MULLER

Sue Foley performs with Mike Griot at The South Orange Performing Arts Center.

Here is Foley’s setlist:

“Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie” (solo acoustic)
“Nothing in Rambling” (solo acoustic)
“La Malagueña” (solo acoustic)
“Pinky’s Blues”
“Rock Me Baby”
“Queen Bee”
“Dallas Man”
“The House Is Rockin’ ”
“Fool’s Gold”
“The Ice Queen”
“Mediterranean Breakfast”
“Okie Dokie Stomp”
“Barefoot Rock”

For more about Foley, visit suefoley.com.

The next show in SOPAC’S Blues in the Loft series will take place on May 4 and feature Blues People, Dave Keyes and Chuck Lambert. Visit sopacnow.org/events.