Ruthie Foster - Joy Comes Back
I'm turning in my homework late on this album because after initially dipping into it for a couple of tracks, I just kept putting off giving it a proper listen.
Loving You: This is a very good cover version of a song I heard about 50 years ago, so it presents me with a dilemma: excellent musicianship, good vocals, but a song that sounds pretty stale to my ears. Is it me or Ruthie Foster? Another familiar cover was Richland Woman, which I think of as being a Maria Muldaur song, although she didn't compose it. Abraham, meanwhile, is right on the edge of turning into a song I can't place, but know really well - perhaps by Gillian Welch ?
And that's how I felt about the whole album: I found it simultaneously flawless but deeply uninteresting. Ruthie's vocals are expressive and I liked the touches of swirling organ and plunking piano that adorn some tracks. The lyrics are crystal clear throughout, and usually pretty good, especially on Working Woman, I thought.
As for the slower tracks, Open Sky and Forgiven, again, they are so well executed, but (no offense to Ruthie Foster), I'm just never in the mood for that kind of maudlin sentiment these days.
Album lowpoint: War Pigs, with its too obvious target, and the clumsy outrage of its lyrics. It reminded me of a song I don't like called Mr. Big, by Free, Govt. Mule and others.
If I had come across this album years ago, I would've really liked it, but today, having listened to similar material for decades, I find myself pretty unmoved by this one, I'm afraid. An ambivalent 5/10 because I don't know who to blame: myself or Ruthie Foster.
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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
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