Ruthie Foster
Ruthie Foster (* 1964 in Texas ) is an Austin- based American blues singer and guitarist. While Foster has been increasingly perceived as a blues musician in recent years, her early albums are characterized by stronger folk , gospel and Americana influences.
biography
Until 1996
Ruthie Foster grew up in the rural town of Gause in Milam County, Texas . Early musical influences included her mother's gospel record collection. B. LPs from The Fairfield Four and above all Rosetta Tharpe , her father's blues records (e.g. Lightnin 'Hopkins ), but also Stevie Wonder , Phoebe Snow and the Beatles . As a teenager, she often played guitar and piano in her parish church, but also in the neighboring, white parishes. At 14, she also became a solo singer in a choir led by one of her uncles. At the age of 19 she got her first experience as the front woman of a local blues band and studied music and sound engineering at the public McLennan Community College in Waco . After graduating, she joined a US Navy helicopter unit in San Diego , mainly to be able to leave the small-town area of her home country. There she was first accepted into the funk and cover band Pride , which appeared frequently at Navy recruiting events, and later into the renowned Commodores Jazz Ensemble in Norfolk , where she also received music theory training. After serving in the army, Foster married and moved to New York in 1990 , where she appeared regularly in the folk scene and signed a contract with Atlantic Records . As part of this agreement, Foster wrote a number of songs for Atlantic. Due to different artistic ideas, however, the originally planned record was not released. After separating from her husband, Foster soon moved back to her native Texas to take care of her seriously ill mother. From 1993 until her mother's death in 1996, Foster worked as a camerawoman and production assistant for a small television station in College Station , while she also appeared in local music clubs. In 1994 the collaboration with the percussionist and singer Cyd Cassone (* 1958) began and lasted for over 10 years. Both became a couple privately at times, often performed as a duo and worked together on Foster's albums. The duo's first big appearance, which Foster sees as the actual beginning of their career, was at the well-known Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, where Foster has now performed several times. Foster and Cassone also got involved in their community and regularly gave concerts to collect donations, in nursing homes, at schools and in collaboration with the police.
1997 until today
In 1997, Ruthie Foster finally focused on her music career again and released her first album called Full Circle , then self-published. Shortly afterwards she was signed to the Blue Corn Music label . However, based on the experience with Atlantic Records , Foster insisted on having a greater say in artistic decisions. This was followed by the albums Crossover (1999) and Runaway Soul (2002), which offered a mixture of folk, blues, gospel and other musical styles. The latter - with guest musician Terri Hendrix - was her most successful album to date, which also earned her an invitation to the popular music TV show Austin City Limits on PBS . Longer tours followed, which are exemplarily documented on the live album Stages , which was released in 2004. It contains material from three different concerts from 2003, with different band line-ups.
Her sixth album The Truth According to Ruthie Foster from 2009 was nominated at the Grammy Awards 2010 in the category Best Contemporary Blues Album and, like the previous album The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster from 2007, reached number 4 on the Billboard charts in the category of best blues albums . Foster let elements of soul music flow into these two albums . In 2009 she went to the - in this respect historical - Ardent Studios in Memphis and won Chris Goldsmith as producer , who had produced the Grammy-winning album Down in New Orleans for the Blind Boys of Alabama the year before. The recordings also included guitarist Robben Ford , bassist Larry Fulcher (known from the Phantom Blues Band , among others ), trumpeter Wayne Jackson (known as a member of the Mar-Keys and Memphis Horns ) and pianist Jim Dickinson , who died shortly afterwards (among others, studio musician with Ry Cooder , The Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin ).
Her live band, the Family Band , with whom she has performed frequently since breaking up with Cyd Cassone in 2005, includes bassist and violinist Tanya Richardson and drummer Samantha Banks. The band can look back on appearances at the Beale Street Music Festival 2010, the Monterey Jazz Festival 2009, the AVO Session 2009, the North Sea Jazz Festival 2009 and many other festivals. Foreign appearances in Canada, New Zealand and Australia are planned for 2011, partly together with his friend, blues and folk musician Eric Bibb , who has also written some songs from their last two studio albums. In recent years she toured with Derek Trucks and the Blind Boys of Alabama, among others .
Awards
In addition to the Grammy nomination in 2010, Foster received further positive feedback in the blues scene. In addition to a Living Blues Award , namely the Critics' Prize for the best “Blues Artist of 2010”, she was honored with a Blues Music Award as “Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year ” that same year . In 2011 she received the Koko Taylor Award in the category "Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year", in which she was nominated in 2008 and 2009, another Blues Music Award .
Discography
Albums
- Full Circle (1997, self-published; republished in 2001)
- Crossover (1999, Blue Corn Music)
- Runaway Soul (2002, Blue Corn Music)
- Stages (2004, Blue Corn Music)
- The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster (2007, Blue Corn Music)
- The Truth According to Ruthie Foster (2009, Blue Corn Music)
- Jazz Fest 2010 - Live at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (2010, Munck Music)
- Live At Antone's (CD + DVD, 2011, Blue Corn Music)
- Let It Burn (2012, Blue Corn Music)
- Keep It Burning (EP, 2013, Blue Corn Music)
- Promise Of A Brand New Day (2014, Blue Corn Music)
- Joy comes back (2017)
- Live at the Paramount (2020)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview with Ruthie Foster in the Austin Daze webzine from August 2006 ( memento of the original from November 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ruthie Foster's biography in the All Music Guide, written by Steve Leggett
- ↑ Article about Ruthie Foster on pollstar.com from May 14, 2010, written by Deborah Speer ( memento of the original from January 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Biographical information about the band members on the official homepage of Ruthie Foster, accessed on February 27, 2011 ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Article Ruthie Foster introduces folk to soul by Mark Jordan on gomemphis.com from September 17, 2010
- ↑ Article Lady Sings The Blues by Jamie Anderson in Curve magazine July / August 2010, p. 52f., Cf. [1]
- ^ Kathleen Hudson: Women in Texas Music - Stories and Songs . University of Texas Press, Austin 2007, pp. 29ff.
- ↑ Disc review for the live album Stages in the Austin Chronicle on July 23, 2004, by Jim Caligiuri (accessed February 28, 2011)
- ↑ Disc review of the live album Stages in the All Music Guide, by Jason MacNeil
- ↑ Chart data in the All Music Guide
- ↑ Disc review of the album The Truth According to Ruthie Foster in the All Music Guide, by Michael G. Nastos
- ↑ List of Living Blues Award winners 2010 (accessed on February 18, 2011) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Foster, Ruthie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American blues singer and guitarist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Texas |