Ruthie Foster spices up the blues

Despite her recent appearance on the top tier of Billboard's blues chart, hanging any one tag on Texas singing and songwriting guitarist Ruthie Foster would be a mistake.

Since her career's start (as a child she sang as the leader of her church choir), Foster has made like Bonnie Raitt and used the blues the way a great chef uses a stock - as a rich base for all manner of spices and mood. She doesn't use blues to exclude, but to include. It has been a recipe for success - Foster's new album, Let it Burn, appears on Billboard's Heatseekers list and Top 200 albums chart.

To an enthusiastic crowd at World Cafe Live on Thursday night, Foster talked about growing up in the church, watching Hee Haw on television for country flavor, and learning from musicians who played stewing New Orleans funk. With an all-woman band of singing players behind Foster - her cousin Tanya Richardson on bass and fiddle, pal Samantha Banks on drums and spoons - the groove, though tight, tight, tight, was fluid, open, and rousing.

Richardson's bass lines were nearly fretless as Foster, playing acoustic guitar exclusively, let loose a boldly chatty voice not unlike Gladys Knight's mightily nuanced tone. In succession, the trio took on Foster's "Another Rain Song," Lucinda Williams' "Fruits of My Labor," and Los Lobos' "This Time," with each gently swaying tune showing off a brand of joyful epiphany despite lyrics rife with empty pockets and hard loving. "Fruits," in particular, was clever in its use of soaring, soulful musical elements from Sam Cooke's "Change Is Gonna Come" to open up Foster's voice and the band's sound.

Foster's cosmopolitan gospel blues found room for rugged, bumping rhythms ripe with vamping sensuality ("Everlasting Light") and rammy sexuality ("Aim for the Heart"), the latter showing off Foster's voice at full flame.

Her ballads were sweetly romantic. A version of June Carter Cash's "Ring of Fire" was low-slung and tender. When things threatened to get slick, the trio moved toward the rustic with Mississippi John Hurt's crusty "Richland Woman's Blues" and Big Maybelle Smith's "Ocean of Tears."

With its flamenco-rocking pulse filled with softly beaten tom-toms and its daring dramatic vocal delivery, "Ocean" was intense, as moving as a child's first teardrop or a succulent kiss.