Ruthie Foster Announces New Album Just Say Yes

Austin-based vocalist Ruthie Foster has announced a new studio album, Just Say Yes, due for release on August 28 via Sun Records. For anyone who has been following Foster’s career over the past three decades, this is welcome news — and the first single suggests it may be among the most personal records she has made.

Foster is one of those artists who has always been difficult to pin down, and that has never seemed to bother her in the slightest. Her music draws freely from blues, soul, gospel, and rock, and she has spent her career building an audience that values that range rather than demanding she stay in one lane. That approach paid off in a significant way last year when she took home the GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album for Mileage — a long overdue recognition for someone who has been one of the most compelling live performers on the American roots circuit for years.

Just Say Yes was recorded in Nashville in what sounds like a concentrated and emotionally charged session. Foster reunited with her Mileage collaborators, producer Tyler Bryant of the Shakedown and co-writer Rebecca Lovell of Larkin Poe, with Lovell’s sister Megan and her husband Mike Seal also joining the sessions. The album spans ten tracks and, by all accounts, covers a good deal of emotional ground — Foster has described every song as drawing directly from her own life, written during a period of considerable personal transition that included a serious knee injury and significant strain in her personal relationship. “This was my way of being true to who I am and knowing that I’m in yet another transition in my life,” she has said, “which is how these albums tend to happen.”

The first single, “Thank You,” released at the start of the month, gives a strong indication of where the album is headed. It is a direct, full-throated response to the experience of imposter syndrome — the persistent questioning of her credibility as a blues artist despite a career’s worth of evidence to the contrary, capped by that GRAMMY win. Foster answers the question in the most effective way possible: by delivering a track that blends blues, rock, and gospel with real conviction. The harmonies are rich, the riffs have genuine bite, and the overall effect is of an artist who has absolutely nothing to prove and knows it. If the rest of the album holds to this standard, it will be well worth the wait.

Foster’s story is worth knowing for anyone coming to her for the first time. She was first signed to a major label after leaving the US Navy, then stepped away from music entirely in 1993 to care for her mother during a serious illness. Following her mother’s death she chose to return to music as an independent artist — a decision that has defined everything since. It is a career built on resilience and on her own terms, which gives the title of this new album a particular resonance.

Like several of the albums I have been covering recently, Just Say Yes sits at some distance from a strict jazz classification — this is blues and roots music at its core, with rock and gospel running through it. But Foster has always been an artist whose work repays serious attention, and I will be reviewing the album in full closer to its August release date.

Just Say Yes is available to pre-order now via Sun Records.

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The Jazz In Europe New Release playlist features tracks from the new releases featured on Jazz In Europe. Updated weekly, this playlist is the perfect place to discover new music from the leading jazz musicians currently on the scene. We hope you enjoy this selection.