Sue Foley: Jazz Aspen Snowmass

Sue Foley is a multi-award-winning blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Her latest release, One Guitar Woman: A Tribute to the Female Pioneers of Guitar, was nominated for the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. On it, Foley delivers a masterclass in acoustic guitar, honoring the trailblazing women who shaped the instrument’s history—from Maybelle Carter and Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Ida Presti and Lydia Mendoza.

Foley’s guitar tone—whether drawn from her signature pink paisley Fender Telecaster or a handmade Mexican flamenco guitar—is a voice unto itself: lyrical, commanding, and unmistakably hers. With painted fingernails and pinpoint precision, she fuses fiery Texas blues with delicate fingerstyle flourishes, channeling a poet’s sense of purpose through every note.

Raised in Ottawa, Canada, Foley was drawn to the guitar at 13 and performing professionally by 16. After relocating to Austin, Texas in her early 20s, she signed with Antone’s Records—home to legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan—and released her 1992 debut, Young Girl Blues, to widespread acclaim. She has since toured internationally and shared stages with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, and Billy F Gibbons, earning her place among the top tier of modern blues artists.

A five-time winner of the Blues Music Award for Traditional Blues Female Artist (2020–2025), Foley also holds a Juno Award, the 2024 Maple Blues “Blues With a Feeling” Lifetime Achievement Award, and numerous other honors. She is not only a performer but a scholar: her forthcoming book, Guitar Women: Conversations with the Heroines of Guitar (Sutherland House, 2026), chronicles her interviews with groundbreaking female players. Foley also holds a PhD in Musicology from York University.

Her performances—stripped-down or electrified—exude conviction, grace, and grit. As The Philadelphia Inquirer put it, “Foley has a killer voice, an impossibly alluring blend of sex and innocence to go with those blazing guitar chops.” With One Guitar Woman, she opens new musical and historical territory, affirming that women have always had a place in the pantheon of guitar greats. “We’ve been here all along,” she says. “Now we’re claiming it.”