Ottawa, Canada may seem an unlikely source for a Texas blues musician, but that is where Sue Foley grew up. At 13, she was turned on to the blues through the Rolling Stones and began performing at 16. After high school, she followed her musical interest to the Texas town of Austin, where she immersed herself in the Texas blues scene.

Before the internet brought all kinds of music everywhere, Foley took the best path to earn her stripes in the music community she loved. Foley admits that gaining exposure to music is easier now but it is not the same. For example, 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! 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.”

Sue Foley made her first move from Ottawa to Vancouver, where she formed the Sue Foley Band. The group toured Canada then the US and Europe in the late ’80s. Playing in Memphis with the band, she had the good fortune to sit in with Duke Robillard at a show. Watching the show was Clifford Antone, the founder of Antones – a club in Austin and a record label. This led to her signing with the label and moving to Texas.

Foley has just released her 16th record named after her late-’80s pink paisley Telecaster Pinky. Pinky’s Blues is a handpicked collection of favorites. Foley says that “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.”