By April MacIntyre Mar 20, 2009, 16:02 GMT
The SXSW Austin Music Awards event Wednesday night (March 18) at Austin Music Hall featured a mix of blues, folk, rock and Americana groove fusion that set the house on fire.
Ruthie Foster
Austin native Ruthie Foster, Carolyn Wonderland, Laura Scarborough, Suzanna Choffel and many others rocked the house.
Foster continues her ascent on the charts with her latest release, "The Truth According to Ruthie Foster" which landed at #4 on the Americana Music Association Radio chart, #8 Billboard Blues Chart, #7 Living Blues Radio Chart and # 13 on FMBQ Public Breakout Chart.
Last week I was fortunate enough to catch Ruthie's trio in a very cool set at LA’s Hotel Café. Foster's all-female trio featured her cousin Tanya Richardson on bass and drummer Samantha Banks. Ruthie's cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Fruits of My Labor” was one of the finest live musical performances I have ever witnessed.
Ruthie also performed at Mother Egans at SXSW on March 19th.
Meanwhile, Ruthie will be touring Japan and Australia throughout April, returning to the US in May and Canada in June for another round of dates.
As for her most recent live LA performance, music critic Roy Trakin declared in Trakin Care of Business: “Ruthie Foster at the Hotel Café, Hollywood: When this dreadlocked, full-figured Texas blues belter first hits the stage in T-shirt and blue jeans, you might be forgiven for thinking Tracy Chapman, but once she opens her mouth to sing, the realization hits home that this is no timid folkie, but a modern version of such forbears as Big Mama Thornton or even Aretha Franklin, mixing in the gospel fervor of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (whose soaring “Up Above My Head [I Hear Music in the Air]” Foster covers in the set) with the deep Delta feel of Jesse Mae Hemphill (the late Mississippi R&B legend she named one of her guitars after—the other, Albertini, is for Alberta Hunter)."
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