By James Killen

I had the great privilege this morning to speak with Ruthie Foster about her recent exploits and the events of her past that have gotten her to the spot that she is. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Ruthie, she is an amazingly strong and diverse vocal talent from South/Central Texas. Anyone that has seen her perform will attest to the fact that she brings it all to the stage and creates an experience for the listener that one should not pass up.

I caught up with her about mid-morning.

HMR- The first question I’ve got is about the Aretha Franklin tribute. You recently sang for that. How was that experience?

Ruthie- Oh, that was awesome. That was a great experience for me, first of all to sing one of my favorite songs, “A Natural Woman” and also get a chance to meet the other artists that were there. Ceelo Green was there and Sam Moore from Sam and Dave, ah there were so many. Allen Stone, who is this great singer/songwriter from Washington State. Got a chance to connect with him and talk about songs and growing up in the woods (chuckles). It was really a spectacular night and really getting the chance to perform in Carnegie Hall was an experience that I will always treasure, if I never get back there again. Just was a beautiful evening. The building and the sound was just to die for. It was just a wonderful night, great experience and it was good to get back to New York after a while. I hadn’t been to New York for a while.

HMR- Cool, cool. I’d read that you did some club stuff up there for a while.

Ruthie-Uh huh. I lived in New Jersey. I worked in the city every day, writing songs and playing the clubs in the East Village and a few in the West village. Yeah, I got to be a real New Yorker. You know it was good for me and I’m really glad that I did that at the age that I was. I was still in my twenties and it was about getting up early and writing songs.

HMR- Cool, cool. You know Hadden Sayers is one of my all-time favorite blues guitarists. How was it playing with him?

Ruthie- Oh, I love Hadden. He still plays with me when we can actually coordinate our schedules, of course he’s raising a family, too. He has his own band and his own career. You know I have a lot of favorite guitar players and I usually try to get guitar players that I’m a fan of to come into my band when I ask them to play. I’m a huge fan of Hadden Sayers. I have been for many years. He used to come through College Station when I was living there. His band used to come through there. I try not to miss him.

HMR- He was a Houstonian, I believe.

Ruthie- Yeah, yeah.

HMR- Who else have you had the chance to perform with?

Ruthie- Well, in the last five or six years, I went on tour with Warren Haynes and his band. I think it was “The River’s Gotta Rise” album tour. And gosh, Derek Trucks, obviously, he was on my new CD. I got a chance to make friends with him and his wife Susan, Susan Tedeschi, great guitar player. They are both very good people. I try to visit them when I am in their area, in Jacksonville. They are not home much these days. Let’s see, Robben Ford, he was on one of my albums, as well and I’ve done a little bit of touring with him. Those were just the guitar players. There are several. There are a lot a lot of great entertainers that I’ve had the chance to be on stage with, to perform with. Joan Osborne, was a fun time, getting to sing with her. I love her voice.

HMR- Oh, I do, too.

Ruthie- Yeah. I’ve had a chance to hang with Mavis, Mavis Staples. We never got the chance to sing together, but I love Mavis Staples. I consider her my shero.

HMR- You cover such a wide range of musical genres, it’s such an impressive show. I saw you at Main Street Crossing not too long ago. How did you develop such a diverse musical portfolio?

Ruthie- You, know, I think it’s just about the music that like to listen to. I just try to perform the music that I want to sing every weekend. You know I go out three, maybe, four nights a weekend, up to two weeks at a time. I do a lot of the same songs, but I try to mix it up. I try to cover the genres that I like to sing. That includes folk, which I spent a lot of time in the folk world early on in my career as I was learning how to play and to write songs. The blues kind of came naturally for me after that. I’ve always loved reggae and I’ve incorporated that into my set that you see live. You probably saw a little bit of that, especially with Samantha at my side, she’s a great drummer. Gospel has always been that constant stream in everything that I do. I don’t know if it’s from my background, being in gospel first. That was like the first music that I was introduced to. My introduction into music was in the church, the gospel church. It will always be there.

HMR- Who was the main influence in your life to make you who you are.

Ruthie- I have to say my mother, my mother and my grandmother. The women in my life growing up. In a lot of ways I still take them with me and I talk about my family when I’m in my shows. It’s a huge part of who I am and that thread that goes throughout all the genres of music that I play. My mother was a huge gospel fan and she loved old soul, Sam Cooke and Johnnie Taylor. Her brothers introduced me to even more types of music, like country music. So, it really just starts with my mother and my grandmother.

HMR- I understand that you grew up in Gause, Texas?

Ruthie- I did. Gause, Texas, Milam County, Highway 79.

HMR- I kind of know the area. I lived in Caldwell from ’66 to ’69 and moved to Houston when I was twelve. It’s not too far from there.

Ruthie- Oh, yeah. I still have a lot of family that live right on the county line of Burleson County and Milam County. Caldwell is a big area where a lot of my family still lives.

HMR- How was it growing up there in the 60’s and the 70’s?

Ruthie- Heh, heh, yeah you know in that area it was very much small town mentality. I think that was really good for all of us, talking about my siblings and all. You know, church, it was all about morals and values with church. That was where I spent the bulk of my time being a church musician and not only a church musician, but I was a speaker, a representative of my church. I grew up in a Missionary Baptist Church, so missionary work was a huge part of my church. I did that work through my music. I travelled around to different churches. So, I think being in that area where I was raised was a huge part of the beginning of my music career that developed over time.

HMR- Are you still involved with the church?

Ruthie- Not in my original church. No. I travel so much. I take church with me, everywhere I go. Yeah, that’s how I do that now.

HMR- I understand. That’s great. I read that you did a stint in the Navy. How was that experience?

Ruthie- (chuckle) I did, yeah. I did four years active and four years in active reserve. It was one of those times in my life when I needed a break from music. I grew up being a young musician and then I went on to study music in Waco, commercial music. So that was another four years there, three years actually. I just needed a break, so I went into the Navy and I worked around helicopters. I was in training to be a helicopter electronics mate and then I switched over to aviation supplies, which is basically, like Radar from MASH. It’s like I ordered parts every day. I actually got pretty good at that. I loved the atmosphere. I got a chance to make a lot of new friends from all over, all over the world, actually. I was living in Southern California. I lived in San Diego. That was a great experience. I had three duty stations in the time that I was in. Norfolk, Virginia was one of them and Florida and Charleston, Charleston South Carolina. So, I got a great experience with learning how to travel and making new friends, because I switched to music. I switched to Navy Band Musician after about a year of working with a helicopter squadron in San Diego. So I spent the rest of my term as a Navy Band Musician, a vocalist in a pop band. That was a totally different experience for me. It gave me a chance to travel all over the Southeast United States and places like Iceland, you know, just getting a chance to really travel with music and not just rehearse. We travelled quite a bit. It really taught me a lot about how to be a travelling musician.

HMR- That’s great, but four years active was enough, huh?

Ruthie- Yeah, I got to that point where I wanted to make music on my own terms. That’s really what happened and I have. I got out and got busy doing just that, learning how to do that. I didn’t really know how. I’m still learning. You never really stop learning when it comes to this industry.

HMR- I really enjoyed “Joy Comes Back”. What was the inspiration for that album?

Ruthie- You know, the album kind of came about when I was really just needing another break. So I had made friends with Dan Barrett, who is the producer of that album. He was a neighbor, lived around the corner from me. He had a home studio, well more of a studio in a house. It wasn’t in his home. I got to know Dan and I stopped by his studio. We’d have coffee and talk about working together at some point. Dan had his Rubicon studio, where I would go for my independent projects, that other people wanted me to sing vocals on their albums. I would have the tracks sent to his studio. So that’s how I got to know Dan. We were just sitting around talking and thinking we should really do something together some time. That’s really how the album came about. I was in the middle of a lot of life changes, big life changes. So I was able to go there and use that place as my solace and through music I kind of found my way back to recording. Through music, I really found my back in so many ways. In more ways, just recording again, because I was touring quite a bit. I wasn’t really into trying to record on top of touring. It’s very tiring. Man you come home after two week, three week tours, the last thing that you want to do is to go into a recording studio for hours at a time and days at a time. It took about two and a half years to do that album and a lot of listening. I wasn’t writing as much, as you can tell. The album is full of a lot of great covers, great songs by great songwriters that I admire. Some writers that I had discovered, like Grace Pettis, who wrote “Working Woman” and “Good Sailor”. I worked with Grace’s dad, Pierce Pettis about ten years ago and so seeing that that lineage is continuing through her was a really exciting discovery for me. But, “Joy Comes Back” was really my homage to recording again and getting a chance to get back into the studio again on my own terms. In a lot of ways, financially, I took the risk of going in and making this record myself and taking it to my record label and working together on getting it out there.

HMR- That’s great. I know you even did an Ozzy Osbourne tune on there.

Ruthie- (laughs) Yeah, I just thought it would be interesting to try that. You know, to strip it down and bring it to see what it would sound like with a Son House feel to it. I think that it worked out. It’s getting a lot of attention, that’s for sure.

HMR- Yeah, I like that. That’s one of them that I remember off there, for sure. Well, tell me, what’s next for Ruthie Foster.

Ruthie- Oh, well, to get out and get these new songs out to folks, this new record. You caught me in my office, so I’m about to start writing again for the next round. I really want the next project that I do to have more original songs, if not all original songs, so I’ve got a lot of work to do. I think that what’s next is just putting myself out there again and hopefully people will appreciate this record and whatever I’ve got to put out for the next one. I’m really looking forward to playing guitar again and I know the band is looking forward to working. So, yeah, the road’s wide open.

HMR- Sounds great. I’ll be looking forward to that next one coming out, too. We’ll try to catch you on your next trip through when you are in the area. Actually, I think that you’re going to be at the Conroe Americana Music Festival, this weekend.

Ruthie- Yeah, I will. Are you coming?

HMR- Yeah, I’ve got a three day pass and a hotel room, so I plan on living there for a weekend.

Ruthie- Oh, that’s right. It’s three days or something like that. Did I read that right?

HMR- That’s right.

Ruthie- Oh my goodness, well that’s going to be fun.

HMR- This is the first year for that festival and sometimes that’s the best year and sometimes they’re just finding their way. I guess I’ll find out.

Ruthie- Yeah we both will.