Interview: Ruthie Foster: Playing and Living the Blues

Her music may have passed beneath the radar for some, even blues fans, but for many years, Ruthie Foster has been playing her style of music and living it.

I caught up to Ruthie at her home in Texas, just before she embarked on a tour of Europe, which will bring her back to the States and through Canada.

As we spoke, Ruthie revealed she was working on a new album; the eventual follow up to Promise of a Brand New Day (on Blue Corn Music), which she hopes is a step forward. "I'd like to think they're all a step forward," Ruthie says. "Some (of my albums) are reflective of my life and where I am. There's a lot of growth going on here; I'd like to think my music is part of that growth. I do tend to stay in the blues realm, and you a hear lot of that, and gospel. That's just my base, but it's kind of mixed."

One stretch came through the musical and behind the board talents of Meshell Ndegocello, whose own work has run nearly every genre superlative. "She stretched me out a lot too," Ruthie admits, "which means she gave me a lot of opportunity to write so you hear more of my material on Promise, which is as always great for me to get to express where I am.

"(M'Shell) gave me a lot more leeway on being able to sing the way I want to," Ruthie goes on. "I was prepared to play, but she brought some great musicians that she tours with, she played all the bass parts, but she gave me a chance to be the vocalist, and we played around with my style and how I wanted to present each song vocally. It was very respectful. It's different with each producer I've worked with, which is why I like using different producers. It's a great way to grow myself in the studio."

The simple, yet infectious kickoff track, "Singing the Blues" was the first this writer heard, and playing it for others sparked an identical reaction. Ruthie recounted the experience she went through, via Ndegocello's exercise. "With that particular track, I didn't know what she wanted to do with it. I gave her a really basic demo of it; it kind of did the same thing for me, it surprised me. She let me listen to it for a while; I took a walk with it with my headphones on before singing it, and it just made me feel good to walk to. Even though I know I wrote it, but you know you write it, you think it's okay, you move on to the next song. But it did the same thing to me, what (Meshell) did with that song instrumentally and it gave me a chance to level up to what she did to it."

On the title track, a call and response gospel track: "I really wanted to find something kind of like 'Travelin' Shoes,' but I wanted to write it myself, and so I just kinda dug deep into how my grandmother would sing it. I call her my Big Mama; some folks have a grandma, I have a Big Mama. So I wanted to reach in and grab that rootiness, that sound that sisters have sitting in that Amen Corner, with the hardwood floor sound. Again, Meshell she jumped right in with that."

Ruthie grew up in the Brazos Valley area of central Texas, and her upbringing brought her in touch with music as fertile as the ground. "I grew up in a rural area where we had more churches than schools," Ruthie says. "The school went to 6th grade, but tons of churches so I grew up with gospel music. So for me gospel, it wasn't so much what was being said, but how it moves you. Everything I write and do, if it doesn't move me, I'm not going to record it I'm not gonna sing it. That's what you hear."

Foster's musical roots were indeed gospel, from Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, James Cleveland and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, "all the way to blues. My dad was a huge Howlin' Wolf fan (and of) Lightnin' Hopkins, a lot of his family still lives in the area."

Television also played a role in Ruthie's young life, and that led her outside, to a slightly unlikely inspiration. "I grew up in the era of television when the variety shows were huge," she explains, the Mac Davis Show, the John Denver Show, the Glen Campbell Show, so I grew up with a lot of country music. So there was that, watching things on TV, but then I think it was when I got a chance to hear Phoebe Snow, there was something about (her) that just moves me: one woman, one guitar. I seeked her out everything I could find, and I did get a chance to meet Phoebe years ago and tell her, through tears, I could barely get it out, what she meant to me."

The music that comes out of Texas does have generational lines, and Foster does see herself as part of a current one. "I've been told that I am, I would really like to think that," she says. "I'd like to think I'm trying to keep that tradition going. Everything else came from it, whether that's blues or gospel. I'd like to see that reflecting everything I do and how I live, I think it's important to do that as a musician, and that's become more and more important to me, and more respectful when it comes to music."

Ruthie recently came off a tour with another of Texas' singer/songwriter legends, Joe Ely. Of him (whom this writer recently profiled), Ruthie speaks with great admiration. "Joe's a beautiful spirit to be around," she says, "he's very relaxed in what he does. I always learned so much from him, but just watching him even offstage.

"The music you hear coming out of him, it jus oozes out of him, that's who he is. He is West Texas," Ruthie declares, "and he's the West Texas I grew up knowing. I come from one generation away from the folks who were country, and raised in the country to raise cotton and they would migrate to West Texas to pick cotton during a certain time of the year to make money and in order get through the winter. You know, I'm just one generation removed form that. And I remember my mother talking about what West Texas was like and he really paints that picture though his music."

A question I posed to Foster stemmed from a comment Ely made about the lost art of the song, and the loss of the story. To that, Ruthie agreed. "He is definitely keeping that alive, and reminding me that we need more of that. He's right on, and all of the Flatlanders all of those guys that come out of that area are really great about touching on that. He's basically getting underneath the character that's in the title, and letting you now where that person comes from. It's a real art form, and its' something that I have to work on," she adds with a laugh, "but I have a few songs that have become to me when I'm that open...you really have to be open to do that deep as a songwriter, and I have a few that I can consider in that realm. But Joe is king."

Another of the current wave out of Texas is Ruthie's friend and occasional collaborator, Carolyn Wonderland. She becomes even more enthused at the mention of the name. "Yeah, Carolyn's been around Texas for a while," she says, "we knew Carolyn when she lived in Houston, and now she's here in Austin. Very good friend, she and I don't see each other enough, but we send love to each other wherever we are in the world. She's another one, she's finding her footing too in so many ways, with getting married the last few years and traveling with her trio. I do love going to hear Carolyn, because she's got fire, too. She's a great, rootsy player songwriter, but when it comes to singing...when that girl opens her mouth, goodness! I love standing beside her when she's singing, 'cause she gives it all, it comes from her toenails, it's beautiful...you tell her I said that!"

Ruthie Foster with Carolyn Wonderland

An armload of Blues Foundation honors documents Foster's presence in the blues world, including five Koko Taylor Awards. "What the award says to me is that you are the holder of the traditional female blues artist," she says. "When I got it the first time, the Blues Foundation voted for me I wasn't sure I deserved it truthfully, 'cause I feel there's so many different genres. I jump around. Some people may think is as jumping around; my album collection has everything in it but the biggest part of my collection is blues. I always go back to that when I'm happy, when I'm not in a good place, when I need some inspiration, so I had to let go of that feeling of worry and stand up tall, especially knowing I had a chance to meet Koko. I think it was the year before she passed. She called me over to her table at the Blues Awards, her daughter introduced me to her, and the first thing came out of Koko's mouth was, 'You are a fabulous singer, and when are you gonna write something for me?' And I almost hit the floor because I thought, first of all, she knows who I am, and second she wants me to write for her. For me to know that I've come full circle from feeling not sure I was worthy of the award to knowing I'm part of the keeper of the torch when it comes to keeping traditional blues alive."

Ruthie Foster is up for the Koko Taylor Award again this year at the Blues Foundation Awards event on May 5th in Memphis. As for her ongoing tour, Ruthie wants you to know this: "What I like to remind folks that want to come out to my shows, I like to say those that got dragged to it (laughs)...just prepare yourself to have a hallelujah time!"

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