CD Reviews

Ruthie Foster

The Phenomenal | Blue Corn

By TED DROZDOWSKI | February 6, 2007

4.0 Stars

Usually when an artist does a makeover on his or her music, the results are disastrous, but this 42-year-old Texas singer-songwriter is an exception. With four solid albums in the acoustic/folk realm, Foster was already a darling of that world’s underground. Now, thanks to this collaboration with Austin producer Malcolm Welbourne, she’s the newest voice in old-school soul. The arrangements draw on the classic R&B of the ’60s and ’70s, blending Hammond B-3 organ, Wurlitzer electric piano, smooth and rippling guitars, and walloping backbeats to provide a mattress for her warm singing, which has just the right mix of honey and jalapeño. Foster pens her own evocative tunes, like the romantic “Harder Than the Fall” and the back-country celebration “Beaver Creek Blues.” She’s also a visceral interpreter, reviving the ancient Delta spirit of Mississippi legend Son House’s a cappella “Grinnin’ in Your Face” and putting every bit of sugar and sand she possesses into Lucinda Williams’s impossibly bittersweet “Fruits of My Labor,” one of the most beautiful songs of this decade. Add in Welbourne’s astute update of a grand sonic tradition plus Foster’s activist social consciousness and her performances here fall somewhere within a spectrum defined by Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Roberta Flack. Phenomenal indeed.

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