MIDDLE: LOVE IN THE MIDDLE/RUTHIE FOSTER

I don't think Ruthie has had a mention in these pages before. She is part of a select coven of female guitar slingers of a distinctive bluesy feel that I adore. Oddly for this genre, and I mean in the "modern" day, so as to avoid upsetting the myriad fans of icons like Sister Rosetta Tharp, she is black. (A quiet pause as I quickly check I am allowed to say that.) But, yes, it is odd, with all the Bonnies and Susans that seem now to epitomise the style, even my old home-town girl prodigy, Joanne. I make this point on neither any grounds of race/ethnicity, nor of blue men (women) sing the whites authenticity, merely an observation.

With a textbook background in a gospel choir dynasty, she took the unusual career choice of a would-be musician and joined the U.S. Navy, honing her chops in forces recruitment band 'Pride'. On de-mob she headed for the big Apple, being wooed, I guess, as a latterday Tracy Chapman, before returning to her roots, both musically and geographically, Texas.

Her first album, 'Full Circle', was self-released, cutting sufficient headwind to be picked up by local label, the combination aptly/ironically titled Blue Corn, for whom she has continued to work, another 6 studio and 2 live sets appearing over the next few years. Awards were also piling up, a Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy in 2009 being followed by a Best Blues (now not just contemporary) Album in 2012.  Accolades elsewhere are aplenty, continuing right up to the present, earning her a second  Koko Taylor Award for Best Traditional Female Blue artist, in 2016. So, from contemporary to traditional in just 7 years!

Stylistically I think she reminds me most of Robert Cray, although this may more be more how, like him, she has engineered a wonderful earthy soul, R'n'B meets gospel, into the sometime rigidity of the blues. I guess these were always assumptions and understatements within the idiom, the various all arising from the same source(s), but reintroduced and reiterated so as to remind that the child is ever the father to the man. (Have I lost you?)

Recent years seem to see her pushed more as a vocalist than a guitarist. Maybe not as stellar on the instrument, maybe, as her above-mentioned peers, she is no slouch, and I for one prefer the idea and image of her, plugged in and playing. To my eyes there is little less pleasure than the sight of a woman toting an electric, slung low, but that may be too much information.

So have you heard of her? If not, I hope this taster gives you appetite and that, in the middle (SWIDT!) of all these posts you can find space for her Love in the Middle. The song itself comes from 2009's 'The Truth According to Ruthie Foster'.

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Nine Lives: Black Cat Bone

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland: Black Cat Bone

[purchase]

This version of Black Cat Bone begins with Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland talking about hearing the song played by Hop Wilson, who wrote it. As nearly as I can tell, that would have been in Houston Texas, in about 1950. Very quickly, the song became a blues classic, and it was recorded in the 50s by Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and many others. By 1985, the song had become one of Albert Collins’ signature tunes, and he was the one who brought it to the sessions for the album Showdown! This was one “super group” album that lived up to its billing. The idea was to bring together three of the biggest names in blues at the time and let them make magic. Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, and Robert Cray did just that.

In African-American folk belief, a black cat bone is a lucky charm, with the power to render the bearer invisible or bring about the return of a lost love. Here however, the singer is the victim of extraordinary bad luck, and he believes that his girlfriend has used a black cat bone to put a curse on him. There is a rather gruesome ritual for the proper making of a black cat bone charm. I will spare you the details, but you can find a description if you are curious in Zora Neal Hurston’s Mules and Men.