Friday, April 3, 2020

Ruthie Foster Big Band: “Live At The Paramount” (2020) CD Review

Ruthie Foster is one hell of a great singer, songwriter and performer. And on her new live album, Live At The Paramount, she gives us something special, the Ruthie Foster Big Band. Yes, this incredibly soulful vocalist is backed by a full horn section. The music is blues, soul, gospel, presented with a joyful energy. Ruthie Foster chooses a good mix of original material and covers for this release. If you’re looking for something to reaffirm your faith in humanity, give a listen to this album.

The album begins with a brief introduction by Ruthie Foster’s daughter (and actually, first someone introduces the daughter, an introduction to the introduction). Ruthie then greets the Austin audience and gets things going with “Brand New Day,” featuring some gorgeous bluesy gospel vocals, the song first delivered a cappella, as on the studio release, Promise Of A Brand New Day. Oh yes, this certainly hits the spot. Then, unlike the album version, some work on drums backs the vocals, and halfway through, the band comes in, something cool and unexpected. Her backing vocalists, by the way, are Sheree Smith, Tamara Mack and Torri Baker. Ruthie follows that with another song from Promise Of A Brand New Day, “Might Not Be Right,” which has a good groove. The horns have a sweet, positive sound, and are a great addition to this song. “Negative thoughts don’t control my fate.”

As much as I love Ruthie Foster’s original material, I am sometimes most impressed by what she is able to do with a song that someone else wrote. She can take a song that you think you know well, and make you look at it in a whole new way. She blew me away with her sexy cover of “If I Had A Hammer,” on her 2012 release Let It Burn. On that same album, she covered Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire,” presenting it as a slower, soulful number. And here she gives us a live take of it, first telling the audience, “This is a Johnny Cash like you may not have heard.” That’s followed by “Stone Love,” a song that was included on The Truth According To Ruthie Foster. The album version opens with organ, and quickly becomes a funky number. This live version begins with some nice, soulful work on piano, sounding like it’s going to go into a gospel number. Then, oh boy, that moment where the pace and tone change, just before the band comes in, is delicious. And then when the band comes in, everything is glorious and just right. And when Ruthie Foster belts out those lyrics, I feel that the entire planet is going to be lifted up to the heavens. The energy is fantastic. The crowd is clearly affected by the music, and you can tell from their applause at the end. Ruthie likewise is affected, as she shouts “Yeah!” at the end.

She takes things down a bit then with the beginning of “The Ghetto,” which has a more intimate vibe at the start. This is a song she included on Promise Of A Brand New Day, and here she gives us a soulful, beautiful vocal performance. Things get even better with this rendition of “Death Came A Knockin’ (Travelin’ Shoes),” a song from her 2002 album Runaway Soul. These glorious gospel vocals will make you shout “Halleljuah!” The horns are superb here, yet Ruthie’s voice seems more powerful than an entire horn section. This track features a cool guitar part as well, which elicits applause from the crowd. That is Mitch Watkins on guitar. That’s followed by “Singin’ The Blues,” the song that opens the Promise Of A Brand New Day album. It has a good groove and a bright, positive sound.

The horns get things going on this version of “Runaway Soul,” giving it a different sound and vibe than it has on the studio version, where harmonica starts it off.  And there is more wild and delicious work from the horn section throughout this track, making it a powerful number. After the song, Ruthie announces she is moving into gospel, and there is some nice work on organ, as she begins “Woke Up This Morning,” the song that also follows “Runaway Soul” on that studio release. Oddly, this is included on the same track as “Runaway Soul” on the disc, even though she begins singing: “I woke up this morning with my mind, it was stayed on freedom/Yes, I woke up this morning with my mind, it was stayed on freedom.” It isn’t until the song kicks in that a new track begins, a very strange (and rather irritating) choice, dividing the song up like that. But the song itself is a lot of fun, featuring some wonderful work on guitar, as well as from the horn section and the backing vocalists.

Interestingly, Ruthie Foster includes only one song from her most recent studio release, Joy Comes Back, on this live album. The song she chooses from it is the title track, and she delivers an absolutely fantastic version, a delicious mix of gospel and New Orleans fun, the horns adding a great deal to its appeal. That’s followed by “Phenomenal Woman,” another highlight of this disc, featuring a beautiful, sweet vocal performance. This song is from her 2007 album The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster (a title that, like all those “Genius” titles of Ray Charles’ work, somehow feels like an understatement). Her voice rises in glorious power, and is supported by some wonderful backing vocals. Ruthie Foster wraps up the album with covers of a couple of standards, first a totally cool and groovy rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon,” featuring some more wonderful work from the horn section, and then “Mack The Knife.” As she begins “Mack The Knife,” she recounts the anecdote of seeing Ella Fitzgerald in concert (purchasing tickets rather than paying the heating bill – exactly what anyone would do). Ruthie really gets into this, and delivers an excellent version. Before leaving the stage, she tells the audience: “Be kind to yourselves. Be kind to someone else.”

CD Track List
  1. Introduction
  2. Brand New Day
  3. Might Not Be Right
  4. Ring Of Fire
  5. Stone Love
  6. The Ghetto
  7. Death Came A Knockin’ (Travelin’ Shoes)
  8. Singin’ The Blues
  9. Runaway Soul
  10. Woke Up This Morning
  11. Joy Comes Back
  12. Phenomenal Woman
  13. Fly Me To The Moon
  14. Mack The Knife
Live At The Paramount is scheduled to be released on May 15, 2020 through Blue Corn Music.

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