Music has always been a family affair for Ruthie Foster. She grew up in rural Texas in a family of gospel singers. In church, she sang and played the piano with her uncle, while at home, she listened to classic blues and soul albums with her father. Foster quickly realized all three styles of music had the power to move people, and artists like Mahalia Jackson, the Staples Singers, and Tina Turner all soon became part of her musical DNA.
Foster’s career has taken a winding path. After college, she spent a year in the Navy, where she worked on helicopters and started singing with the Navy Band. She released her first album, “Full Circle,” in 1997, and she’s been touring and performing ever since, earning three Grammy nominations, an Austin Music Award, and the 2015 Koko Taylor Award for best traditional female blues artist. Her latest album, “Promise of a Brand New Day,” features an eclectic mix of original songs and covers that represent Foster’s deep musical roots.
Foster has been touring in support of “Promise” since it came out in the fall of 2014, and her latest stop is at The Stone Church in Newmarket on Sunday, Sept. 27. The Sound recently caught up with Foster about working with producer Meshell Ndegeocello, writing in different voices, and what she plans to do when she takes a break from touring this fall.
It’s been a year since “Promise of a Brand New Day” came out. How’d the album come about?
It was a couple years in the making, getting together with Meshell Ndegeocello, my producer (on the album). I’d show up at her concerts and she’d show up at mine, and we’d get a chance to talk about working together. We found some time on our calendars that worked so we’d be in the same place at the same time. … I really wanted to have her as a producer, to bring in her sound to what I do … I wanted us to complement each other. She spent a lot of time putting my voice up front; she’s always looked at me as a powerful singer and she wanted to present that on this album. … And, because I wrote a lot more on this record, you hear a lot more of my voice in that context, too. That would be what was really different about this album. I wrote a lot more for it, including a song written with William Bell, the soul singer and songwriter, so that was fun to do. And also, one of my “she-roes” is Toshi Reagon, and she and Meshell are old friends, so she contributed one of her tunes and actually added a verse for it.
You wrote many of the songs on “Promise.” What’s your songwriting process like?
I use life. Just the other day, I sat and wrote a new tune. I’m at the beginning of a new relationship, and that brings out all types of words and feelings, and so I sat down and started writing what I feel. I use other people’s lives, too. That’s always fun; I just borrow someone else’s drama and I go from there. Another thing I do, and I haven’t done this in a while, so I’m glad you brought this up … is that I write based on someone else’s voice. … I used to do that all the time with Bonnie Raitt — my dream was to write for her.
What happens when you write in another songwriter’s voice?
It lifts me out of the genre I’m in — it lifts me out of blues sometimes and takes me more toward a country sound. It just depends on the person or the voice or sometimes even the context, what the song’s saying. I have something from one of my older albums … that I wrote with George Strait in mind, with steel guitars behind it and all that. Sometimes, it’s just about letting the song go where it needs to go. … As musicians, we know what we know when it comes to chord structure and the mechanics of music, but when you lift yourself out of what you think you know … that’s when the magic happens.
You grew up in a family of gospel singers — how did that influence your development as a musician?
As a musician, that was my wake-up call to music. Sitting in a little Baptist church in the central part of Texas, in the middle of July and August, it’s the hottest part of year in one of the hottest places, and you’ve got this wonderful music coming at you. As a young person seeing how that (music) moves people … that was a huge, huge call for me. I got into playing piano with my uncle … I was 10 when he decided to sit me next to him and play the organ … and I was disciplined enough to know when to come in and out (laughs). Gospel was just a huge part of that, and the community part, the bringing of people together, that’s a huge part of my shows, a huge part of how I run my band. I call them my family band, and it’s a huge part of my management team. To me, it’s about communicating, and coming from a gospel background, it was about bringing people together, and I think that’s helped with my communication, in the way of bringing everybody into the fold. It’s a family thing.
Was there a particular moment you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I think I always knew, and I think a lot of folks who are in this industry feel the same way. I will say it didn’t start off as music for me. It was more wanting to be a writer, having something to say. I was a real quiet kid, really shy. I spent a lot of time by myself and I did a lot of journaling. … I was a huge reader and I love poetry and I love black poetry — Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni. I love what women had to say about growing up and being young and black and not entirely accepted. I grew up in the ’70s, when there was a lot of awareness about (being) a woman, or black, or poor. Those were issues that were just starting to come into view at that time. As a very young person, I really connected to that. As a writer, that’s where I wanted to start. I wrote poetry and short stories and then I got a guitar and it just changed. I morphed into being a songwriter. But I still write, still journal. I think it’s very important for everybody to do that. Hopefully, I have something interesting to say these days.
You joined the Navy when you were younger; why was that your first stop, rather than music?
It was really just about getting out of music for a while. I needed to unplug. I always wanted to travel, and I thought with the military, I can go anywhere. There was something attractive about the structure of it all. It was something I wanted to do in high school, but I wasn’t allowed to make that decision on my own. So I said to myself that if I still wanted to do it after I graduated college, I would. So I did. I really was only out of music for a year. … I worked around helicopters for a year, as an aviation store keeper. I was standing watch late one night and I realized OK, this is good, this is more like work and it’s cool, but now I’m ready to go do something fun. I decided to go ahead and audition for the Navy Band. I talked to my (commanding officer) about that, after he got a chance to hear me sing at one of his Christmas parties. There were a couple guys working at the hangar and we all put a band together for a Christmas party. Nobody was singing, so I just got up and started singing “Red House,” like Jimi Hendrix … and (the officer) came over and said, “Why are you here working on helicopters when you can sing like that?” He actually helped me get an audition for the Navy Band.
What can audiences expect at the show?
I’ve been mixing the last three albums into my sets, so a lot of it will be “Promise of a Brand New Day,” with that soul and blues sound, and then “Let It Burn,” we’ll bring a few ballads from that one, (like) “Ring of Fire,” and even a couple CDs from before that. A lot of folks who come to my shows want to hear some of the old material too, so I like to keep it mixed. … It’s just me and my drummer