Ruthie Foster. Contributed/John Carrico
By John T. Davis
Special to the American-Statesman
Say this about Ruthie Foster: Once she sings a song, that rascal stays sung.
A case in point is “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” which Foster performed midway through her headlining concert at the Paramount Theatre on Saturday to celebrate the release of her new album, “Joy Comes Back.”
Originally a lighter-than-air Motown confection that was a hit for the Four Tops, the song also got a wonderfully rough-hewn treatment from The Band some years back. But Foster, with the help of her own band and several special guests, opened the song up and took it to church. After she got done, it was hard to ever envision the tune otherwise.
Foster is diminutive in stature, but she has a gospel-soaked voice as big as Godzilla. And whether she turns it loose on airy pop (“Open Sky”), gutbucket blues (Mississippi John Hurt’s “Richland Woman Blues”), anthems of affirmation (“Working Woman” and “Phenomenal Woman”) or even reggae (an encore rendition of her own “Real Love”), she has a transformative effect on her material.
That even goes for her South-Austin-back-porch-jam-session take on Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” It’s tempting to regard the unusual interpretation as a sly goof, and maybe on one level it is. But damned if Foster didn’t sell that song like it was the greatest thing since night baseball.
On this evening she had a bigger musical palette to work with than usual. In addition to her usual ensemble, she added the talents of guitarists David Grissom and Carolyn Wonderland and fiddler Champ Hood, as well as a harp player, a keyboardist and a pair of backup vocalists. The array of musicians let her put some extra muscle into the blues rocker “Working Woman” and Son House’s gospel testament “People Grinnin’ in Your Face.”
But the night was all about Foster, and she made the most of it. During her encore number, she took one note and held it. She shook it, worked it, wrung every drop of emotion out of it and then held it some more. It brought to mind those Olympic ice skaters who pirouette for what seems like forever in a timeless dimension.
