Ruthie Foster - Let It Burn

Artist: Ruthie Foster

Album: Let It Burn

Label: Blue Corn

Release date: 31st January 2012

Rating: 3.5 / 5

    An anticipated release by this reviewer, I was hoping for more, but this album still is very far from disappointing.  The first cut opens with huge voices, pulling me in- the Blind Boys of Alabama with their signature sound underneath Ruthie's amazing voice and the killer pedal steel of Dave Easley.  The variables in this equation are far from formulaic and thus, a stellar blues record has been born.  I love the big Hammond B3 all over this record, seldom heard these days, but my ears enjoyed being enveloped by its warm, rich sound.  Ruthie's powerful voice is almost too much for the music at times, the accompanying musicians kick it up a notch to keep up.  She does multiple cover tunes on this, her 7th record, (plus a handful of originals), and she pulls parts from many of the different tributaries of the huge musical river.  On the Black Keys' "Everlasting Light" she adds her own take to the already phenomenal tune, slowing it down a tad, stripping away the grit and adding a feminine perspective.  Other covers from the likes of June Carter, Pete Seeger and David Crosby also get twists and turns added to them, almost completely making them her own.  (The sax on Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer" is simply delicious!)  A more contemporary blues record, filled with Gospel and slowed-down jams, Ruthie swings really hard and just about knocks it out of the park, but not quite.