{"id":798372,"date":"2019-08-08T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/music-scene-ruthie-foster-brings-the-blues-to-dillon\/"},"modified":"2019-08-08T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T21:20:00","slug":"music-scene-ruthie-foster-brings-the-blues-to-dillon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/music-scene-ruthie-foster-brings-the-blues-to-dillon\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Scene: Ruthie Foster brings the blues to Dillon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Ruthie Foster will perform for free at the Dillon Amphitheater at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10.<\/strong>
Courtesy Ricardo Piccirillo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s fine to call Ruthie Foster a blues artist. She only has seven Blues Music Awards sitting on the shelf at home, and she\u2019s been nominated for the Best Blues Album Grammy three times.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s not really a blues artist. She\u2019s a blues-folk-pop-rock-gospel and even a little country artist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s entirely fair to see me that way,\u201d she said in a recent phone interview. \u201cThose are all genres I grew up listening to. Like everybody\u2019s record collection, I have a little bit of everything. I enjoy all those genres of music. That\u2019s why you hear so many different genres, even in my live shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foster said her mix of styles and powerhouse church-rooted singing, reminiscent of Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples, has been with her since she was a little girl in the tiny town of Gause, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes from growing up in rural Texas, being exposed to a lot of gospel music. That seems to be the root of what my music comes back to,\u201d she said. \u201cBlues, my dad would listen to blues, and he\u2019d make me tapes of Lightnin Hopkins, Muddy Waters. And old soul, Sam Cooke and all of those. My parents would talk about going out to see Johnny Taylor, Ike and Tina Turner. That was a happy place for me, hearing my parents talking about going to see them when they\u2019d come through east Texas on the chitlin circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shy kid, Foster wanted to play guitar and piano more than stand in front of people and sing. But by 14, she was a soloist in her uncle\u2019s choir and seemed to be headed toward a career in music.<\/p>\n

Then, after going to school in Waco, where she picked up some reggae for her musical mix, she made an independent, distinctly nonmusical turn that got her out of Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d just graduated college,\u201d she said. \u201cI went into the Navy and spent a year away from music. I went into a helicopter squadron. That\u2019s where I picked up a lot of rock. That\u2019s what the guys there listened to. Then I joined the Navy band, and it sent me in another direction. \u2026 I just went through a period where I said \u2018yes\u2019 to everything. That\u2019s what you\u2019re hearing \u2014 my adventures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next adventure came after she got out of the Navy, landed in New York and began playing in folk clubs. Atlantic Records got wind of the talented singer and offered her a record deal. But the label wanted to groom her to be a \u201990s pop star.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted another Anita Baker,\u201d Foster said. \u201cShe was signed to another label, and (Atlantic) wanted an Anita Baker. I used the time to get to know a lot of songwriters. I used the time well, learning to sit in front of people, maybe just two people and entertain them with just my voice and guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1996, after three years, Foster said goodbye to New York and Atlantic and returned home.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother wasn\u2019t doing good; I was homesick for Texas and needed a little simpler life,\u201d she said. \u201cMusic was getting to a point where it had burned me out. So I came back, joined my church. I\u2019d studied broadcasting in the Navy and got a job at the local TV station. Then I stumbled into another popular band. We were playing every weekend, every other weekend in Bryan-College Station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foster\u2019s mother died two years after her daughter came back, and Foster decided to pursue music full time, recording her first album, \u201cCrossover,\u201d which was released in 1999. Another self-released disc followed in 2001. Then Foster teamed up with Houston independent label Blue Corn Music, on which she has released six albums \u2014 three of them Grammy nominated.<\/p>\n

Staying independent rather than going with a major label like Atlantic has allowed Foster to retain control of her music and career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think I\u2019ve got some control of my music.\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d highly recommend it to independent songwriters. That\u2019s all you\u2019ve got. The business side of things is a big deal. It\u2019s a lot of work. I just got back from a 12-day tour in Europe, and I\u2019ve got a meeting all day to talk about next year, how we\u2019re going to do things on tour, distribution \u2026 .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoy Comes Back,\u201d her most recent album, is something of an aberration for Foster. It has only one Foster composition \u2014 the title cut \u2014 and is a compilation of songs she heard and liked and resonated with what she would have written at the time.<\/p>\n

It begins with \u201cWhat Are You Listening To?\u201d from the pen of country\u2019s Chris Stapleton, includes her take on the Four Tops\u2019 \u201cLoving You is Sweeter Than Ever\u201d (a Stevie Wonder co-write), and a single blues track: Mississippi John Hurt\u2019s \u201cRichland Woman Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been doing that for years but never recorded it,\u201d Foster said. \u201cI was playing my resonator (guitar), and that\u2019s what led to (Black Sabbath\u2019s) \u2018War Pigs.\u2019 I had the resonator and said, \u2018I\u2019ve been playing around with this version of \u2018War Pigs\u2019 (and I) want you (producer Dan Barrett) to hear it. I wanted him to hear my twisted version of \u2018War Pigs,\u2019 slowed down and done like Son House. He liked it, and we added drums to it, finished it up. Sabbath fans might call it sacrilege. But I know Ozzy\u2019s a blues fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWar Pigs\u201d probably isn\u2019t often in the sets of the live shows of Foster and her backing group. \u201cI don\u2019t get a chance to pull that one out,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t travel with a resonator yet. But it\u2019s another example of the music that\u2019s in my library, in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor do songs from \u201cJoy Comes Back\u201d dominate the show of the acclaimed live performer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the joy of having so many genres and putting out records that are all over the place,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ll pick a couple from that one. I see that as more of a singer\/songwriter record, and I want my live show to be more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruthie Foster will perform for free at the Dillon Amphitheater at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10.Courtesy Ricardo Piccirillo It\u2019s fine to call Ruthie Foster a blues artist. She only has seven Blues Music Awards sitting on the shelf at home, and she\u2019s been nominated for the Best Blues Album Grammy three times. But she\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 21:52:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}