04.24.2008
Merlefest’s Ruthie Foster is phenomenal
Nobody really blinked an eye when Ray Charles, being Brother Ray and all, released an album bearing a title that declared him a “genius.” Nor was there discord when Aretha Franklin, the undisputed Queen of Soul, was described on one of her album’s titles as “electrifying.”
Ruthie Foster, a who-is-she singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas, titled her fifth album The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster. For anybody who has yet to hear Foster, this might seem a bit audacious, if not blasphemous.
“I’ve spent considerable time explaining that over the last year,” Foster said, laughing.
Foster has been a fast-rising phenom in the roots-music underground for years, a path that took on intensity on a national level with the release in 2002 of Runaway Soul, a disc that made myriad critical “best-of” lists that year. A live album, Stages, solidified her identity - that of a singular contemporary acoustic musician whose extraordinarily soulful voice, drenched in blues, gospel and R&B, was a potent force that could no longer be denied, much less ignored.
Then last year came The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster - a bold and gutsy move by an admittedly ferocious singer and performer.
“I wrestled with that, but my manager and other people thought it would be a fun thing to do, an homage of sorts. I realized that it was setting me up for disaster, but I felt it was necessary to do something to push the envelope a bit, to do something different to prevent burnout.” She laughed, then added, “It’s like the saying goes, ‘It ain’t bragging if you can back it up,’ and I really felt pretty good and happy about what I had done. I had a good time.”
The gambit worked. Critics and old fans fawned over the album, which paired Foster with a band for the first time in her recording career. The results were subtle but powerful, a roots testimonial to soul that audibly reflects Foster’s influences - Odetta, Mavis Staples, Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin, among them - while casting her own natural abilities, rooted in the church, in a new, even more fervent and righteous light.
Many people commented on the title, but few, if any, disagreed. Even Foster agrees that it pushed her to fresh heights, and that she met the challenge.
“I feel like these songs really show who I am, where I’ve come from, what I’ve gone through, and where I sit - which is a lot to digest,” she said with a chortle. “Recording this record was really just a lovefest. And it isn’t a modern-sounding album at all, which is something I really appreciated. It was done on analog equipment to two-inch tape, and performed with vintage equipment.
“I think my songs have old souls, and the old spirit of the recording, the soul of the old instruments, proved the perfect complement for what I do.”
Foster records for Blue Corn Music, a small label with a big reach out of Texas. When she was younger, she was signed by Atlantic Records fresh from a stint working with the U.S. Navy Band, which she described as “one tough band.”
Her stay with Atlantic was brief - she never recorded before being amicably released - but she learned much about the business and remains friends with many of the people she met.
“I had a chance to bop around New York, to ... experience performing in some of the places that my heroes had performed in, and ... I got a lot of really good free meals.
“We just had different ideas about who I was. They saw me as a combination of Anita Baker and Tracy Chapman, and I didn’t.”
The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster splits the song selection between Foster’s songs and a handful of carefully chosen cover songs that shed insight into what makes her tick as a musician and a woman.
In that regard, the key song on the album (and a strong hint toward the true motive behind the album’s title) is “Phenomenal Woman,” a song set to a poem by Maya Angelou, who lives part-time in Winston-Salem. The song is one of strength and self-empowerment, a celebration of womanhood, and Foster gives a performance that embodies the song for all women.
“It’s a gutsy song by a woman that all people should respect,” Foster said. “To not give my all to the performance would be disrespect, not just to Dr. Angelou, but to women everywhere, and to the respect that we all demand.”
Foster said that the songs on the album, if listened to carefully, shed insight into the journey of her life to celebrate the place in life in which she now resides.
One of the key moments on the album and in performance, Foster said, is “People Grinnin’ In Your Face,” a song by the late Son House, a Mississippi Delta bluesman, that Foster sings a capella.
“When I was young, we would start every gathering with a prayer, and that song, to me, is just that,” she said. “It would be easy to stand and strum and think about ironing and coffee. But when you shed the guitar and just stand there and sing, you center yourself, you connect, not just with what is inside of you, but with the crowd, and that is a magical thing.
“In that magic is what makes all great music phenomenal.”
Ruthie Foster will perform twice at MerleFest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro.
She will perform from 8:15 to 8:45 p.m. Friday on the Cabin Stage, and from 1:25 to 2:05 p.m. Saturday at the Austin Stage. For ticket information, visit http://www.merlefest.org or call 800-343-7857.
Foster will also play at 8:30 p.m. today at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro. Tickets are $23 and $25. Visit http://www.artscenterlive.org or call 919-929-2787.