Catch award-winning blues musician for free Friday in West Kelowna
Award-winning Canadian blues guitarist, singer and songwriter Sue Foley, will be performing a free concert Friday during West Kelowna’s Music in the Park.
Foley is touring to support her latest album, the Ice Queen, which was recorded in Austin, Texas, where we caught up with her for a phone interview.
Returning to Austin to record the Ice Queen is a full circle journey, as Foley began her recording career when she lived there in 1992.
Heavy hitters Jimmie Vaughan, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Charlie Sexton are guests on the album, a thrill for Foley who said blues artists look up to their heroes.
“To have people like Jimmie Vaughn or Billy Gibbons acknowledge that I exist, much less play with me, it’s unbelievable,” she said.
The Ice Queen has been No. 1 for six consecutive weeks on the Canadian folk, roots, blues charts.
While Foley said it’s great to have the special guests on the Ice Queen, she thinks the reason the album has been so successful is the strength of the songs and the concept.
Foley wrote nine of the 12 songs on the album and co-wrote another.
The title track was actually the last song written, but ended up becoming the whole album concept.
“I was just thinking about the term ice queen and how people interpret a woman who they call an ice queen, so the song is written from that perspective,” said Foley.
All the songs she’d been working on for the album are relationship-based from different perspectives, from despair to hope.
Foley, a seasoned performer who has been working seriously as a blues artist for 30 years, has won a Juno award and holds the record for the most Maple Blues Awards in Canada, said she’s playing better than ever.
“For a blues artist, I’m sort of in prime time right now, where most blues artists create their biggest body of work and their most profound work for the most part, because it’s a more mature style of music,” she said.
Growing up in Ottawa with 1970s rock ‘n’ roll, Foley learned about blues artists such as Muddy Waters and B.B. King through the Rolling Stones’ music.
“Once I found it, I just thought it was such pure music and it’s so hard to play,” she said. “It’s a life journey and I find it’s the kind of music you can grow into with age. Your story gets richer and you have more to give your audience.”
Foley will take to the stage with Pinky, her pink paisley Fender Telecaster guitar she bought in a Vancouver music store 28 years ago.
“I just thought it was bright and sort of had an identity,” she said. “I thought people would remember me if I had something like that.”
Foley loves being on the road, playing every night in front of an audience.
Because the Ice Queen was recorded live in one room with hardly any overdubs, the band pulls it off accurately live on stage.
While the songs from the Ice Queen will be the focus of Friday’s concert, Foley will be reaching back for songs from the dozen solo albums she has released over the years.
“People can expect a great blues show with lots of energy, lots of guitar, acoustic and electric,” she said.
Music in the Park takes place at the Annette Beaudreau Amphitheatre in Memorial Park, adjacent to the JohnsonBentley Memorial Aquatic Centre. The Sue Foley Band will take to the stage at 7:45 p.m. Shaedan Hawes, an emerging artist, will warm up the crowd at 6:40 p.m. with indie folk rock, followed by Joshua Smith at 7 p.m., who will play roots and folk.
Bring your own lawn chair. The City of West Kelowna suggests people consider carpooling, walking, biking or using transit as parking will be limited.