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.

Related: Not quite phenomenal, Praise the Lord, Tone poet, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More

| More

More Information

Ruthie Foster, Songs from The Phenomenal

ARTICLES BY TED DROZDOWSKI

TOM HAMBRIDGE | BOOM! | August 23, 2011
Roots rock is the new country and ex-Bostonian Tom Hambridge is the style's current MPV.

COUNTRY STRONG | SOUNDTRACK | January 11, 2011
This steaming pile of songs is emblematic of the state of mainstream country music — all artifice, no heart, calculated anthems written to formula and meant, like the film itself, to do no more than capitalize on the genre's current success and rob its undiscriminating fans.

MARC RIBOT | SILENT MOVIES | November 02, 2010
This exceptional, eccentric guitarist has traced a slow evolution from screamer to dreamer.

IN MEMORIAM: SOLOMON BURKE, 1940 — 2010 | October 11, 2010

REVIEW: RONNIE EARL AND THE BROADCASTERS | SPREAD THE LOVE | September 07, 2010
Boston-based blues-guitar virtuoso Ronnie Earl seems to be considering his past on his 23rd album as a leader.