Guitar Women: Life Lessons from Forty Six-String Heroines

Every generation has its myths about the guitar: who gets to hold it, who gets to define it, and what it means to play it. Guitar Women moves beyond those myths through intimate conversations with women who shaped the instrument’s sound and story.

Part oral history, part memoir, and part cultural reckoning, the book spans generations and genres, featuring artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Nancy Wilson, Charo, Suzi Quatro, Joan Armatrading, and Sharon Isbin.

Writing from her own experience as a touring guitarist, Foley approaches these exchanges from the inside, bringing together deeply human accounts of persistence, artistry, and devotion to the instrument shared in the artists’ own words. The result is a richer, more truthful lineage of the guitar, revealed through the lives of women who have always been at its heart.

Sue Foley is a Canadian blues guitarist and singer. She has released 15 albums since her debut with Young Girl Blues. In May 2020, Foley won her first Blues Music Award, in the 'Koko Taylor Award' category. She recently defended her PhD thesis on women and the guitar.