Blues on a Nylon String Guitar-Sue Foley
 

I'm always inspired by Sirwhale's posts and fine playing in this sub-forum--coincidentally I saw a Facebook post from a local festival this weekend with Sue Foley on a classical guitar, and it surprised me as I've known of her as a long time Tele player, and electric Blues artist. So I did a little research and it found several videos of her on a nylon string, and apparently she has studied Flamenco guitar as well! Gonna dig mine out of the closet today!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDqfGFdmk8M&t=102s

Plugged in with her trio:



Some Flamenco style:



And my friend shot this at the aforementioned festival:

https://www.facebook.com/john.reilly...9026722205314/

There's more stuff on YouTube as well. And I found this article too:
https://www.guitarplayer.com/players...blues-horizons

Some fine songs there Stringmaster.

I think a lot of has changed with the 'nylon string' guitar to move it into an area that is suitable for many musical styles.

The main two points I would say are:

The development of guitars:
There is more choice now in classical guitar tone, with brighter guitars now being as normal as the softer cedar guitars.

The flamenco guitar has branched out into the flamenco negra which gives it much high versatility over a flamenco blanca.

The development of strings:
The use of non-nylon strings has really promoted the versatility of the Spanish guitar. Carbon strings offer great projection, brightness, and sustain. But now Aquila is rapidly innovating with new polymers such as nylgut, and sugar.

There are now sounds for all tastes and styles, at lower tension, (often) greater projection, greater tonal palette, and more variety in materials than steel strings.

I've never heard Sue Foley, but the Lady can play!

Nylon strings are great for blues. On youtube there are plenty of videos to prove it. For instance this guy:

https://youtu.be/HCZqaSujHn0

That was an awesome little rabbit hole to stumble into. Every now and then, YouTube can be amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Check out David Buckingham

https://youtu.be/K-tOyjJTxgY

very nice playing, although it lacked some deep bluesiness to me, probably because of its fusion with flamenco.

New instructional video course!
https://truefire.com/sue-foley-guita...ource=hs_email

I would not call that flamenco, but a fun sound nonetheless.

The nylon string can be surprisingly effective in a blues type situation. Check out Joe Pass with Ella here.

I’m surprised Sue Foley plays so well with that technique. Not a rest stroke in sight, and her right-hand little finger is curled into a knot of tension. But she makes it sound pretty good.

I prefer the playing of David Buckingham in the other video, and I agree that it’s got nothing to do with flamenco, fusion or otherwise.

There’s a lengthy recent history of nylon-string guitar in country music. Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed are among the best-known high-octane guitarists, and Willy Nelson is another example. I even saw a video of Dolly Parton playing nylon on some late-night talk show.

But we’re here to talk about blues on nylon. Here’s a good one by Davy Graham titled “Blues for Gino.”
https://youtu.be/OAiQFN2Xvgw

That Graham cut is outstanding.

Ain’t it a hoot? From the same album, “Forty-Ton Parachute,” “Sarah” and especially “Lashtal’s Room” are other killer tracks of his that I play regularly (on nylon). “Sarah” is a blues in A but I haven’t mentioned it until now because he plays it on an acoustic (steel-string) guitar.

Lenny Breau is another one who played nylon well.

What a great Duo Ella and Joe were!

Lucas Brar

when a classical guitarist discovers the blues