Sue Foley moved to Austin at the end of the 1980s to immerse herself in the city’s blues scene, where artists like the Vaughan brothers, Albert Collins, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, and Billy Gibbons became her beacons.
For Austin, Texas’ favorite Canadian expat, guitarist, and singer Sue Foley, staying faithful to the blues tradition is more than just a concern of style. It’s a calling. Foley explains: “I never questioned really dedicating myself to the blues, and that commitment and desire to always be true to it has never changed. I can see where the lines have been blurred between blues, Americana, and country, and there’s a million ways you can skin a cat at this point, but for me and my perception of what the blues really is, you have to step into a history and a deep tradition.”
With her latest release, Pinky’s Blues, Foley doubles down on that assertion while adding a fresh document to Austin’s fabled blues catalog. The album’s obscure song selections flex Foley’s muscles as a historian and student of the form, but also provide a fabulous platform for her tremendous personality and chops as a guitarist and vocalist. The album, which was named after her beloved late-’80s pink paisley Fender Telecaster, “Pinky,” is Foley’s 16th release as a leader and a love letter to the forgotten but influential deep cuts that helped shape the Austin blues sound as we know it.
“We really handpicked these tracks of favorites between me and our producer Mike Flanigin. These are all songs that, when we were coming up, you kind of had to know to get in the club, so to speak. Something like Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown’s ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’ was a rite of passage for any guitar player in Austin back then. Now, you never hear anyone doing it, but it was a regular song that everyone had to know.”
Pinky's Blues
Foley earned her stripes in the blues world the old-fashioned way. After starting to find her voice on guitar in her native Canada, she grew enamored of the blues and specifically the sounds coming out of Austin. Foley relocated to the hip Texas city in the early ’90s to immerse herself in the local blues culture. In an era before the internet gave us infinite access to all things, Foley’s Texas pilgrimage wasn’t just a drastic way to soak up the music. It was the most authentic way. Foley ruminates on that magical, pre-internet era.
“It’s completely different now! I have a 24-year-old son that’s a musician, and the way he is able to view and experience music is totally different from what we did. It’s still really valid, but it’s just a different vibe. What I saw and experienced was all direct transmission, and that honestly had to be experienced directly. I had to stand in front of Albert Collins’ amp to get the full effect! I had to have part of my hearing destroyed and I had to move molecules. I think direct transmission like that is important and you just can’t get that from the internet.”
“Let’s face it, Howlin’ Wolf wasn’t in there splicing together his vocal takes.”
Foley continues: “I can talk about Albert Collins, but unless you stood in front of his amp and watched him, you can’t really get it. You can watch all the clips of him you like and say, ‘Well, yeah, he had a wicked tone,’ but when that tone hit your ears in person, I’m telling you it split your hairs! That shit was real and that shit changed my life. I’m not sure if I was just starting out today if I’d even be a blues musician, because I wouldn’t have seen all of these people live. It was experiencing that face-to-face and walking away with my jaw dropped that changed my life and expanded my spirit and my soul, and I’m not sure I could do that watching a YouTube video.”
The years Foley spent worshiping in front of the amplifiers of (and eventually sitting in with) greats like Collins, Brown, Billy Gibbons, and Jimmie Vaughan helped her shape a style that’s undeniably authentic and traditional, but defined by an impressively vocal phrasing approach that gives her playing its own special personality. From the soulful, improvised instrumental title track and album opener to the brasher rave-ups (“Dallas Man” and “Okie Dokie Stomp”), Foley’s singing and guitar playing is timeless and familiar, yet entirely her own. From her tones to her note choices, she tends to favor understatement fueled by palpable conviction.
Sue Foley’s Gear
Meet Sue Foley’s pal Pinky, the reissue Telecaster that’s been her onstage companion for 30 years. She strings the instrument with D’Addario .010 sets and uses a thumbpick for her ringing single-note leads.
Photo by Michele Gare
Guitar
- 1988 Fender MIJ ’70s Paisley Telecaster Reissue named Pinky
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario strings (.010–.046)
- Golden Gate small thumbpicks
In the spirit of capturing as live and visceral an experience as possible, Pinky’s Blues was cut in just three days by Foley and her band (which included drummer Chris “Whipper” Layton of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble/Arc Angels fame, and a guest appearance from Jimmie Vaughan himself) playing in the same room—including all the amps. There was no pre-production involved and the musicians went in with only a cursory knowledge of the songs—something Foley believes added a lot to the album’s undeniable spark and energy.
“Everything was done live, everything was played together in the studio, including the vocals,” Foley relates. “No overdubs. I was just getting comfortable with a few of the songs. Chris Layton is obviously a wizard and can just play anything, and Jon Penner was my very first bass player and he’s back in my band now. So, it was a bunch of really skilled musicians and what we do is live music, so none of us were intimidated by the process. We just went for it! That’s how all our favorite albums were cut! Let’s face it, Howlin’ Wolf wasn’t in there splicing together his vocal takes.”
From Foley’s perspective, deliberately shirking any rehearsal of the tunes on Pinky’s Blues forced her and her band to really listen to one another as they tracked. “Everyone was really in the moment, and that spontaneity and energy is what you’re hearing on the album. And the reason this album sounds so good is the bleed, because we had so many room mics and we were all in one big room. It was set up like a live show and we just hit record, so we were getting the drums in the vocal mics, the vocals in the guitar mics, and that bleed created this big, cohesive sound. Our engineer, Chris Bell, worked hard to get those sounds right, and I know he had challenges mixing the album because everything is going into everything. You want a blues record to be a little on the edge, you know?”
Recorded in the studio in just three days, Foley’s new album sparkles with live energy—and bleed. Producer Mike Flanigin is also an Austin scene stalwart, who has toured and recorded with Jimmie Vaughan and Billy Gibbons.
When asked what legendary drummer and longtime friend Layton brought to the fold beyond his signature deep pocket and greasy backbeat, Foley is quick to call out his fantastic playing on “Southern Men,” and tells PG the tune was a deep cut that was dug up from an obscure ’70s compilation album called Blues in D Natural. “I’ve had it in my vinyl collection from way back, and Chris Layton had that same compilation and showed it to Stevie [Ray Vaughan] and they cut [Sly Williams’] ‘Boot Hill’ off that album. The original version [by Georgia-based bluesman Tommy Brown] was called ‘Southern Women,’ but we did it as ‘Southern Men.’”
All players hit a rut occasionally, and when Foley found herself in the 6-string doldrums, she turned to flamenco guitar to shake things up. Foley believes the picking hand is where the magic of a player’s personality really comes through, and as a player with a fixation on picking techniques, flamenco offered her a buffet of new techniques and a completely alien playing experience. Foley, who favors a thumbpick and acrylic nails on her right hand, says, “I used to watch Gatemouth, and his picking hand had this magic thing to it. He had unique things he was able to do. I took flamenco lessons because there happened to be a teacher in town, and it really turned me on my ear. It was literally like I had never played the instrument before, and I had been playing for almost 20 years at that point. It was very humbling. I took a year or two of those lessons and I applied those techniques to some kind of hybrid-blues form. I love playing my nylon-string guitar, and flamenco and blues are very sympatico art forms in my opinion. I think a lot of your tone comes out of the picking hand and I think you get more special elements out of your playing if you focus on that side of your playing a bit more.”
“These days, the whole loud guitar and amplifier thing isn’t the most popular thing, but it still is for me, and I love it. It’s a feeling of power!”
Much like her heroes, Foley favors a lone guitar and a spartan rig. The entire album was tracked with Foley’s paisley Telecaster named Pinky, which is a stock MIJ reissue that she fell in love with and got new in 1988. “I saw it and thought, ‘I have to have that!’ and my boyfriend at the time brought it home for Christmas and had made the first payment, but I paid it off in installments,” Foley says of Pinky’s origins. “I’ve played that guitar at every show, recorded every album, and done every tour with it for 30-something years now. It’s got a lot of miles and it still sounds great. I’ve never changed the pickups, but I’ve had it refretted a few times. I’ve always loved the neck and it’s always sounded so good that I’ve just never wanted to mess with it!”
Pinky sang through an early ’90s 1959 Fender Bassman reissue on the album, which Foley bought new. The guitarist says that she’s never felt the need to be particularly adventurous about gear, because “you can dress everything up, but at the end of the day, you’re still you and you’re going to sound like you. When I saw Albert Collins, he only ever had one guitar. When I saw Gatemouth, he almost always played the same one.” However, Foley does make an exception for reverb, which she loves, and called upon a Boss Digital Reverb and a Strymon Flint to add some atmosphere to her cranked Bassman.
Foley digs into one of her solos, which are marked by a thick midrange-and-reverb heavy tone and in-the-pocket playing.
Photo by Joseph A. Rosen
Beyond her killer new album, Foley’s many years in the game—coupled with a dedication to studying the blues tradition with an academic approach—has afforded her a unique perspective. While she’s a staunch proponent of preservation, Foley makes no bones about the fact that to keep the blues alive “you have to breathe new life into it, you’ve got to be yourself, and you’ve got to tell your story. There’s a whole bunch of things you can add into it that bring this tradition forward and into the current times, but it’s about your personal story and nobody can take that away from you. That’s where your blues begins and ends, really!”
Foley’s lengthy career has brought her shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the greatest guitarists the genre has ever produced—experiences she says were not just wildly validating but provided the perfect opportunity to steal from the best. “You can learn some of their tricks because you’re seeing them up close and getting a feel for the little special things that everybody incorporates in their stuff that might not be immediately apparent,” she notes. “I’ve played with Jimmie [Vaughan] a lot, and he’s got a lot of little special things that he does to make up his secret sauce, so there’s that. That osmosis and direct transfer and those magical things that shoot right into your spirit when you’re getting them from an amp and a guitar … that’s what it’s all about for me. These days, the whole loud guitar and amplifier thing isn’t the most popular thing, but it still is for me, and I love it. It’s a feeling of power!”
And while many of the great blues players that shaped her love of the genre have now passed on, Foley still appreciates the style’s capacity for reverence and respect for its elders more than anything: “When I was coming up, we toured with every blues artist that was on the scene, from Buddy Guy to Koko Taylor. Most of them were a lot older, but there was a real reverence for that age and a real respect, and I just love that about the blues. You can grow up in it, grow old in it, and get better! To me, that was always the beauty of blues music: When you get older, you kind of get better. It’s such an age-obsessed, youth-obsessed world these days and when you see an art form like this that not only really appreciates age, but you kind of have to have some years in the game to be the real deal … it’s rare.”
Sue Foley - Live in Europe DVD
Chock full of perfect-blues-tone guitar solos, this live concert from Köln Germany captures Sue Foley relatively early in her relationship with Pinky, her paisley Telecaster. It also reveals how deeply her playing is rooted in Austin’s blues legacy.
Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman.
I am writing this piece for a guitar magazine, so, necessarily, I must serve up info that is guitar-centric. And I can do that, at least a little bit. But Elliott is also a noted composer, runs his own little record label, plays woodwinds proficiently, is a guitar builder/tinkerer, author, gracious supporter of other musicians’ efforts, family man, and killer blues player—a blues scholar, in fact. So where do we, the public, conditioned to needing categories, pigeonholes, and easy assessment signals, put Elliott Sharp—an artist with a powerful work ethic and a long, illustrious career of making mind-bending sounds and conceptual works? How about putting him in the pantheon of the maverick and the multifaceted? Surely this pantheon exists somewhere! In mind, in heart. To those for whom such things resonate and inspire, I bring you Elliott Sharp.
One can obviously go to the information superhighway to find info on Elliott, and to hear his music, so I won’t go into too many details about where he was born (Cleveland) and when (March 1, 1951; as of this writing, Elliott is 74), or what he is best known for (being a crucial figure in the downtown New York City scene from 1979 to the present). He is Berlin Prize winner and a Guggenheim Fellow (among other honors). And I have never asked him what strings and picks he uses, so maybe I have already blown it here. But I realize now, having taken on this assignment, that inherent in writing about and trying to explain Elliott Sharp is an implicit TMI factor. There is so much going on here, so much diverse information that could be imparted, that I would not be the least bit surprised if some readers eventually glaze over a bit and start thinking of their own life’s efforts and goals as rather paltry. I get that! Although you shouldn’t.
E# @NaturalHabitat
Here, now, is my portrait of Elliott, accompanied by what I imagine is a day in the life of Elliott when he’s at home in New York City.
Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman. He, like so many in New York and in the world of music/art/guitar, favors dark-hued clothing (yeah, a preponderance of black) and is most often seen wearing a classic slouch hat of obvious quality. He relocated from Buffalo via Western Massachusetts to lower Manhattan in 1979 to a zone that was, back then, quite treacherously decrepit, in an apartment that offered only an hour or so of heat in the winter, etc., etc. It was cheap, and things were always happening, and, in fact, it was the 1950s domicile of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.The area became the nexus of an ever-expanding circle of iconoclastic, experimental artists of many stripes.
Sharp plays what passes for a fairly staid instrument in his collection: a bass and guitar doubleneck, in 1992.
Elliott is still in that building in the East Village, though it is now only his workplace and not his living space. I am trying to remember exactly when I met Elliott, but it was probably about 25 years ago, and he still had only the one small, original apartment and a shared music space in the Garment District. I, like countless others before and after me, stayed in that East Village apartment whenever I needed a place to crash and Elliott was elsewhere, and eventually he was able to secure the next door apartment and expand his space. This is where Elliott Sharp works every day that he is not touring, pretty much 9 to 6. The place is a bit funky and dusty, and it is filled with instruments, amps (some classics, like a mid-’60s Princeton Reverb and a tweed Champ), and other tools accumulated over many decades—in spite of the many times that certain ones had to be sold to keep bread on the table.
When he’s not composing, scoring films, recording other artists, or gigging with the bands he has been in or led for the last several decades (Mofungo, Carbon/Orchestra Carbon, SysOrk, Terraplane, The Bootstrappers, Aggragat), Elliott tinkers with guitars, pedals, mandolins. Elliott is, to me, the king of guitar transformation, and his tinkering is stunningly Frankensteinian as he guts, rebuilds, and alters all kinds of stringed instruments, both electric and acoustic. He recently told me that in the ’60s he built fuzz boxes out of tobacco tins to make money. How cool would it be to have one of those now?? If one does a search on Elliott Sharp, many photos will reveal what I'm talking about: the handcrafted doubleneck he was most often seen playing in the ’80s (there was maybe more than one), 8-string guitars, modified Strat-type guitars with completely different pickups.. He also has a fancy guitar or two, such as his Koll fanned-fret 8-string, upon which he has played many a solo recital. During Covid time,, things were a little slow in the cash-flow department and, as a family man with twins, a little extra income was needed. So Elliott started building really cool-looking guitars out of cheap
ones and parts from wherever and refinishing them in hip and attractive ways and called them Mutantu. He sold them to friends and friends of friends. Yours truly basically only changes strings on his guitars, appealing helplessly to experts to do any kind of work on his guitars and amps, afraid of costly errors. The maverick and multifaceted among us, like Elliott, possess no such fear.
Even a leader in experimental 6-string gets a little guitar face now and then—especially when he’s playing blues.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, back to that promised day in the life of Elliott Sharp (as imagined, with some degree of knowledge, by me): It’s early morning, and there is family to contend with. No bohemian lollygagging! So it’s feed the kids breakfast, do what parents must do. Then it’s off to the office (his studio), so Elliott dons a fine gray shirt (is that silk?), dark trousers, coat, and hat, and walks north from the family apartment on nearly the lowest point of eastern Manhattan to the East Village. The traffic and endless refurbishing of the Williamsburg Bridge roars familiarly overhead, the East River flows, and eventually a river of another kind, Houston Street, is crossed. Up the stairs to the fifth floor and the studio door is unlocked. Espresso is made. (There will be more of this.) The computer is turned on. And then ... who knows? Anything could be on the docket, but some sort of work will ensue for a good eight hours. Maybe a new graphic score for a German symphony is in the works (some of these have become visual artworks, too), or maybe it's time to try another mix of that Terraplane track, the one with Elliott’s friend, hero, and inspiration Hubert Sumlin—the one Elliott recorded not long before the famed Howlin’ Wolf guitarist joined his ancestors in the Great Beyond. Or maybe he’s recording a variation on his trio ERR Guitar (where he was originally joined by Marc Ribot and Mary Halvorson), called ERE Guitar Today, with Sally Gates and Tashi Dorji. Could happen—and it did. You can see Elliott’s studio in the ERE Guitar CD booklet.
Or maybe it’s guitar tinkering/building time. Where’s that delightfully chunky neck from China that would be awesome on that fake Tele body that was just refitted with no-name humbuckers (“sounded good once I removed the pickup covers,” Elliott observes) and a resophonic guitar tailpiece? By 5 or 6 it’s time to go home, maybe cook dinner tonight. And then ... my little imagined epic ends with a tasteful cinematic cliché: the dissolve.
The E# Way
Elliott Sharp has techniques that, in some cases, are all his own. No stranger to open tunings, prepared guitar, and other extended techniques, he often utilizes rhythmic, two-hand tapping to create spiraling, hypnotic patterns. His composing over these many years has employed and embraced genetics, Fibonacci numbers, algorithms, and fractal geometry. Though a mathematics and physics know-nothing myself, I see and hear a relationship between these elements as he has applied them to his uncompromisingly avant-garde compositions and these tapping patterns often heard in his solo work. Once he kicks in signal processing, stand back! What one hears sounds like four people (or other species and life forms), and the sensation is exhilarating. Sure, there could also be evidence of (here it comes) skronk (I can't believe I used that word), but Elliott certainly does not reside permanently in that world. Enjoying all kinds of sounds, from the lonesome moan of a resonator guitar to the aleatoric sputterings and squeals of a tormented electric guitar, is something he and I share, after all. Take, for example, two of his latest recordings on his zOaR imprint, Mandorleand Mandocello, which document his solo work on the two instruments, respectively. Both recordings investigate the instruments’ acoustic characteristics before, about half-way through, switching suddenly to electric, ultra-processed sounds. It’s a bracing experience that explains a few things about this man and the breadth of his aesthetic sweep. The sounds bring up images of recombinant DNA (information on which he has also imbued into his work), roiling lava, and the ever-expanding universe. Recommended!
Sharp applies his wicked two-handed-tapping technique to his 8-string, fanned-fret guitar built by Saul Koll.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, this might fit into the aforementioned TMI category, but Elliott Sharp puts out a staggering amount of recordings. Every time I see him (which is not often enough), he has a little pile of compact discs for me, often on zOaR. I saw somewhere recently that he has released 165 recordings, but I think there are probably more than that. It’s hard for even the data lords to keep up! But it’s not always Elliott Sharp pieces or improvisation/collaborations on these albums. Other artists whom Elliott knows and respects can be represented, such as Spanish electric guitarist/conceptualizer A. L. Guillén, late bassist/producer Peter Freeman, Italian voice and guitar duo XIPE, or Hardenger fiddle player Agnese Amico—all articulate and singular musicians whom Elliott assists by releasing their music. I am grateful for this. It’s obviously more “work” for Elliott, and he accomplishes it, along with everything else he takes on or imagines doing, with elegant aplomb. Though obviously a nose-to-the-grindstone worker, Elliott is generally low-key and relaxed, even after those espressos.
The last thing I want to write about is Elliott's interpretations of the music of Thelonious Monk. Are you surprised, even after everything else you have just read, that something like that exists? In 2003, Elliott released a solo acoustic guitar recording called Sharp? Monk? Sharp! Monk!, and stunned the world (well, those few who pay attention to such things). However, my first exposure to Elliott's Monk interpretations was the more recent Monkulations, expertly recorded live in Vienna in 2007. (You can hear it on Bandcamp). These recordings are, justifiably I suppose, controversial in certain corners, because they do not adhere to Monk's exact written particulars note-for-note. Yet the mood, gestures, rhythmic wonders, and even the harmonic depth of Thelonious Monk often emerges, and frequently in astonishing ways. I understand why some would take issue with this approach because it departs significantly from the jazz tradition, but I find it remarkably fresh, bold, and so delightfully E#. They reveal an aspect of Elliott’s thinking and playing that is surprising in some ways, but also so him. It is clear to me that Elliott has seriously examined and internalized Monk’s repertoire.
Spring(s) in the garden: Sharp can use just about any tool in his improvisations.
Photo by Norman Westberg
Elliott is an artist who plays more than one instrument, plays them all in unique, startling, and often innovative ways, composes rigorous conceptual works from chamber music to operas, makes electronic music with no guitar, plays mean blues guitar like a swamp rat, authors books (I highly recommend his mostly memoir IrRational Music, and a second book is emerging this fall), builds and modifies guitars and other devices, is stunningly prolific, and is an elegant gentleman. The planet is a better place with him and his work in it. The maverick and multifaceted often have a rough road to tread, as we all know. So check out Elliott Sharp's vast world if any of this seems interesting to you. Thanks, Elliott!
YouTube
Watch Elliott Sharp and Marc Ribot deliver a masterclass in free improvisation at Manhattan’s Cornelia Street Café in 2010—Sharp’s two-handed tapping and slide playing included.
Elliott Sharp’s Favorite Gear
This doubleneck guitar accompanied Sharp on many of his ’80s performances and is one of his earlier experimental instruments, as is this 8-string.
Road
Guitars
• Strandberg 8-string Boden
• 1996 Henderson-Greco 8-string
Amp
• Fender Deluxe Reverb or black-panel Twin Reverb (depending on size of venue)
• Trace-Elliot bass amp w 4x10 cabinet
(live rig uses both amps, run in stereo)
Effects
• Eventide H90 w/ Sonicake expression pedal
• Sonicake Fuzz
• Hotone Komp
• Hotone Blues
• TC Electronic Flashback 2
• VSN Twin Looper
Accessories
• Slides, EBows, springs, metal rods and strips, small wooden and ceramic square plates
Home
Guitars
• 1946 Martin OO-18 acoustic guitar
• 2006 Squier 51 (Sharp explains: “On New Year's Day 2007, I took the twins down to the East River in their stroller. They were 15 months old and knew a few words. As we rolled along, they started shouting “guitar, guitar,” and, sure enough, sticking out of a garbage can was a black Squier 51 that someone had attempted to ritually sacrifice. Brought it home and cleaned it, and it’s become a favorite couch guitar.”)
Obviously, any sound that emerges from the Triple-Course Bass Pantar is likelly to be interesting.
Studio
Guitars and stringed instruments
• Fender 1994 ’50s Telecaster built from a Fender-offered kit
• Mutantum lime green metalflake Strat w/Seymour Duncan Little ’59 pickups
• Mutantum solidbody “manouche” Strat w/classical neck
• Saul Koll custom 8-string
• Rick Turner Renaissance Baritone
• 1966 Epiphone Howard Roberts
• 1965 Harmony Bobkat
• 1984/’96 Heer-Henderson Doubleneck
• 1956 Gibson CF-100 acoustic guitar
• 1968 Hagstrom H8 8-string bass
• Mutantum Norma fretless electric
• Godin Multiac Steel Duet
• 2001 Dell’Arte Grande Bouche
• 1958 Fender Stringmaster 8-string console steel guitar
• 1936 Rickenbacker B6 lap steel
• 1950s Framus Nevada Mandolinetto
• Mutantum Electric Mandocello
• Arches H-Line
• Triple-Course Bass Pantar
Amps
• 1966 Fender black-panel Princeton Reverb
• 1980 Fender 75 (Per Sharp: “Cut down to a head and modded by Matt Wells into a Dumble-ish monster! For recording, it plugs into a 1x10 cab with a Jensen speaker or a Hartke Transporter 2x10 cab
• 1970 Fender Bronco
• 1960 Fender tweed Champ modded by Matt Wells
Effects and Electronics
• Vintage EHX 16-Second Delay w/foot controller
• Eventide H3000
• Eventide PitchFactor
• Lexicon PCM42
• ZVEX Fuzz Factory
• Summit DCL-200 Compressor Limiter
• SSL SiX desktop
• Prescription Electronics Experience
• Zoom Ultra Fuzz
• Korg MS-20 analog synthesizer
• Korg Volca Modular synthesizer
• Make Noise 0-Coast synthesizer
• Moog Moogerfooger Ring Modulator
• Moog Moogerfooger Low-Pass Filter
• Softscience Optical Compressor (for DI recording, custom made by Kevin Hilbiber)
Strings
• Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046) or Power Slinky (.011–.048), for conventional guitar.
