Ruthie Foster

If you haven’t yet been introduced to the music of this prodigiously gifted singer and songwriter from Texas, you’re in for an epiphany. Foster mixed contemporary folk with old-school gospel and blues with dazzling efficiency and showcasing a powerhouse voice on her first two albums—her self-released, 1997 debut, Full Circle, and her 2002 breakthrough, Runaway Soul. But you really haven’t ever heard Foster until you hear her now. Simply put, mama’s got a brand new bag. “A lot of folks don’t know this,” says Foster, “but I come from a deep background of old soul and blues and even R&B. Early on, long before I ever got into the folk thing, I was doing more soul on acoustic guitar than anything else. And that’s always been a part of the sound that I have. Change is kind of scary for a lot of people when it comes to music,” says Foster. “But I’ve had a lot of changes in my life the last couple of years here, both personally and musically, and it was just time to step out. Running across Papa Mali when I did was great for me, because he’d been showing up to a lot of my shows here in Austin, and he mentioned that he heard so much more in me than what was coming across. That really got my attention, because I knew that there was more, too. I’d been wanting to stretch out for quite some time. And he had a way of just saying, ‘It’s time to fly, Ruth.’”

Purchase the Whole Hog pass to see Ruthie Foster in a private performance (this is in addition to her festival performance).