Tag: Mike Seal

On Just Say Yes, Ruthie Foster Keeps a Little Attitude in Her Gratitude

Posted on by Editor

With a brand new album, Just Say Yes, Ruthie Foster is back on her feet.

Although she’s been on the go for decades as a runner as well as a troubadour, Foster was actually on crutches in the recording studio after injuring her right knee while running to catch a flight. During her slow but steady recuperation, she found songwriting to be a useful way to help get herself back together, both in body and in spirit. You can especially hear that effort in the lyrics of “Take Time” and “Sitting Still.” But there’s also an assertive side to Foster’s musicality in “Thank You,” where she’s just letting you know, “I keep a little attitude in my gratitude.”

Winning a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album for her previous effort, Mileage, Foster hasn’t lost a single step with Just Say Yes. Tyler Bryant returns as a songwriting collaborator and producer; his wife, Rebecca Lovell of Larkin Poe, also joins in as their co-writer on all 10 tracks. In addition, there are plentiful contributions from Megan Lovell (Rebecca’s sister and bandmate) and guitarist Mike Seal (Megan’s husband), while Tyler and Rebecca’s newborn son, Jesse, brought an extra dose of joy to the studio proceedings in Nashville.

Chatting with BGS from her home office in Austin, Texas, after a short run of shows, Foster spoke about unspooling her nervous energy throughout a live performance , the echoes of good advice from her elders, and why she gives big respect to bluegrass.

BGS: Where did the album title, Just Say Yes, come from?

Foster: I was talking to my co-creators. We were sitting in their living room, and I was telling them about this Post-It note with “Just Say Yes” that I used to put …well, it’s actually still on my computer monitor. I was taking a break from music at the time [in 1993], and just trying to take care of myself, take care of my mom, and I wanted to just open myself back up to music. I just put that on my computer and said, “Okay, I’m just going to say yes to any opportunity to play.”

And things just start happening. I had a day job working at a TV station and every other Friday was my senior living tour. I would go to two nursing homes and play during my lunch break, and it just kind of started from there – just being able to play again. And it opened up to coffee houses on the weekends, and now I’ve got a band together, and I’m now here. So it was really about saying yes to opportunity and whatever came in front of me. Use it for the better good of where I want to be.

And now saying yes is about taking care of me, taking care of myself, my time, my peace, making time for meditation every morning. That’s been the biggest thing for me – taking time for myself every morning before I even speak to anybody. Because when I do that I can go out in the world and I can respond rather than react. And it’s been huge for me.

My favorite song on here is “Take Time,” and I was going to quote my favorite lyric back to you, which is, “Maybe all that you’re doing is all you need to do.” That was such a poignant way to express the idea that it can be enough – what you’re doing can be enough.

I think that’s what this album is doing, and what it’s gonna do. I know it’s been therapy for me. Really, I guess we could just call this my therapy season. I think the last album, Mileage, was that way. I had a flight attendant just last night on the flight who came and sat next to me, and she said, “I read the list of people who were coming on, and I saw your name, and I just wanted to tell you how much your music means to me. I’ve had a rough couple of years, and your music has gotten me through that.”

That says it all. And I had to tell her, “Girl, wait ‘til you hear the next one!” (laughs) Because it’s that way for me too. It’s been therapy. I’m reminded all the time at the merch table that that’s my purpose. I guess this is why I’m here, to remind you that you’re doing enough.

That song, it’s not the Ruthie Foster that people expect. I’m not singing at the top of my voice. I’m just sitting on a porch watching my cows and my horses and my chickens. That song means a lot to me too, because it’s mixing in a lot of the things my big mama – my grandmother – would say to me, and my mother. It’s all of this advice and acknowledging their presence in the room and what they poured into me, and I’m just giving it to someone else.

I know you play a lot of festivals, and since this is The Bluegrass Situation, I thought I’d ask you, do you like bluegrass? Do you have any favorite bluegrass artists?

Oh, absolutely. Ralph Stanley. I got a chance to hang out with when he was still with us. That’s been years ago. Obviously, he’s been gone for a while, but I got a chance to see him, and he was such a gentleman, and the band was just beautiful. I mean, beautiful. They were pretty boys. (laughs) We got a chance to hang out at a festival, and to me, that was another one of those moments. It’s like, “I’m done!”

Del McCoury and his guys, I got a chance to hang out with them a few times because I did folk festivals for a long time. I still do, and so when I get a chance to run across great bluegrass players, I love to pick their brains about their style and how they pick so dang fast! I’m a guitar nerd but I can’t play like that. But I am a big fan of great players.

Oh, Mike Seal! You know, he’s all over this album, and he’s a wonderful guitar player. He can play anything. That’s the other thing I find with bluegrass players; they can play any instrument. And I love that. I’m a little bit jealous of that, actually. I do play other instruments myself, and maybe that’s why I’m interested in hanging out around those guys. Big respect for the genre.

So, how are you feeling now with this new record coming out? Is there an excitement or any sort of emotions raging through you?

Yeah, I’m a little scared because I’ve got to learn a lot of lyrics! The energy’s big, and talking about it is good for me. I still have a lot going on in my life. I gotta pick up my kid from school today, and I don’t want to forget that. (laughs) It’s like putting all these different hats on at the same time. So acknowledging the release is just part of my life.

And this is the other thing I’m learning – being a musician and being Ruthie Foster is one thing. What I’m learning to do is mix that with my everyday. Like this morning, I went over and I just wanted to sit and talk to my neighbor and ask, “How are you doing? What are you doing in your life?” I get why people want to talk about what I’m doing, but I want to know how someone else is. I want to know how she’s doing. Did her grandkids show up this weekend? You know, that’s the kind of stuff that I want to stay connected with.

And this album coming out, I just want that to be part of the conversation. I want to know what you got from it. I want to know, how did this make you feel? What song was it that stood out for you? That’s what I’m anticipating. I want to know what these songs mean to everybody, because I know what they meant to me. I’m excited to see what people think of it, and a little nervous at the same time. Because this is my life on the plate, and I’m handing it to you.

I think it’s good to have some nerves though. I still get nervous about certain things, and I think it means that I care.

That’s exactly what it is. It’s just energy. My voice teacher told me it’s good to be nervous. You want some kind of energy. You have to learn how to convert that into something positive. And you can let that go a little bit at a time as a vocalist. I know if I don’t have nerves, it’s almost like you don’t care. She taught me how to take that ball of energy and just unwind it as you go throughout the set, and give it out because someone needs that. That’s all.

When you talked about changing that energy to the positive, it reminded me of “Thank You.” There’s some energy going on in that song, but you shift it right away.

I do, yeah. I’m waiting to see who’s paying attention!

That’s such an attention-grabbing song. What was on your mind when you wrote that?

That was actually brought to me half done by Rebecca and Tyler. Megan and Mike were part of that one too.You know, people look at Ruthie Foster as doing all of these affirmation songs, but I’ve had discourse and people who were naysayers and telling me what I couldn’t get away with all my life. Especially all of my musical life, because people want to put you in this box all the time. And it may have a lot to do with why I’m still out here and nobody knows who I am, because I do move around in different genres. I think it’s okay to do that. There are no rules.

And I want to be singing these songs for a long time, and want to be interested in what I’m singing as well. I don’t want to sing the same thing all the time. That’s not how you live life. So why would I do that with music? So, I wanted to add a few more verses to this song and a few more choruses, and that’s what you’re hearing at the end of the song. “I put a little attitude in my gratitude,” all of that. And I want to say thank you. I’m gonna write a letter from jail if I end up there. That’s OK. I know how to braid. I know how to trade. (laughs) I’ll be fine!

I just put a little more attitude in the song as we were finishing it. That’s how it got so long. It’s one of the longest songs. We didn’t want to leave anything out! Rebecca was great with getting me started. She’s like, “OK, here’s what we’ve got right now. What do you want to add?” I was holding on to my drink, going, “Yeah, I got some more stuff I want to put in there!” So, yeah, the attitude in the song came from me!

Photo Credit: Jody Domingue

Jerry Douglas’ New Album, ‘The Set,’ Tracks His Musical Evolution

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Undefinable by a single era, genre, or instrument, Jerry Douglas’ otherworldly picking prowess on Dobro and lap steel guitar knows no bounds. Whether it’s running through Flatt & Scruggs songs with the Earls of Leicester, kicking up covers like The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” or conjuring up jazz-like improv jams, the sixteen-time GRAMMY winning musician has a way of drawing the listener in with his tasteful tunes.

That trend continues on The Set, his first studio album since 2017 – although he did stay busy producing records for Molly Tuttle, Steep Canyon Rangers, John Hiatt, Cris Jacobs, and others during the time in between. Released on September 20, the record captures the sound of Douglas’ live set with his current band – Daniel Kimbro (bass), Christian Sedelmyer (violin), and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seal – with a mix of new and original compositions, reworkings of older songs from his catalog, a couple of intriguing covers, and even a concerto.

BGS caught up with Douglas ahead of his tour dates in support of the new record – and his induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame this week – to discuss the motivation behind The Set, the similarities between Molly Tuttle and Alison Krauss, and much more.

This is your first album in over seven years. What was your motivation for returning to the studio after such a large gap?

Jerry Douglas: I’ve been doing records for everyone else those past seven years. [Laughs] We’d go out and play a show and people would come up afterward and ask where they could find this song or that song. It got me thinking, since the songs I play live are scattered across many different records — some of which are out of print — that it’d be a good idea to get them all into one place, one album. It’s not a compilation record by any means, it’s just how I love to hear these songs now.

Speaking of how you love to hear these songs now, you’ve recorded many of them in the past. This includes “From Ankara To Izmir,” which you first recorded on lap steel before opting for the Dobro this time. What led to that shift?

When you first write a song you don’t know it, because you haven’t lived with it yet. You need to play it about 100 times and really flesh it out to see what all’s in there. When I originally recorded “From Ankara To Izmir” in 1987 for the MCA Master Series we had a much bigger, bolder band around it. However, the more I got to playing it out live the better the Dobro felt on it. It allows me to be more dynamic with the song, which I also cut with drums in 1993 before switching things up and leaving them out this time.

We actually haven’t used drums since the record I made with John Hiatt in 2021. He didn’t want them, so we used the rest of my band… it felt great having all that space the drums usually filled back, so we just continued as a four-piece after that. It’s gone on to inform a lot of the music on this record, not just with that one song.

I love the evolution that songs can take over time, whether it’s something as simple as changing out one instrument like you’ve done a couple times here or going from a full band to something that’s solo acoustic. Different arrangements breathe completely different life into a song, and your record is a great example of that.

Even Miles Davis recorded a lot of his songs two or three times with different bands. He wanted to hear them with the band he was with at that moment, which all included different people, personalities, characteristics, and playing styles. Music is meant to evolve over time as influences and circumstances change. Songs are traveling through their life collecting little pieces to add to themselves just like the rest of us do.

That room to experiment is only expanded with your band, who you’ve been with now for eight years. How did the chemistry you have with them help to drive the sonic exploration behind The Set?

Like you said, we’ve been together for a long time now. We’ve been everywhere together and have become good at picking up nonverbal cues from one another. A lot of times I’ll just give Daniel a look and he knows what to do. That trust allows us the freedom to experiment and keep things fresh for ourselves, which in turn keeps it fresh for the audience as well, whom we don’t ever want to leave behind.

That same attention to detail can be felt in the album artwork as well, which I understand comes from a connection you made across the pond while there for the Transatlantic Sessions?

Yes. William Matthews is a famous western watercolor artist who was in Scotland with me when we started rehearsing for the Transatlantic Sessions right after COVID. We typically tour the country at the end of January and into February for 10 days playing the entire show and William was following us around painting. One day I walked into his hotel room and his paintings were all the way around the wall. One of them was of Doune Castle – seen in both Monty Python & The Holy Grail and Game Of Thrones – that, unbeknownst to us at the time, ended up becoming The Set’s cover art.

Earlier we touched on all the producing work you’ve been up to lately. One of those has been Molly Tuttle, who you’ve worked with on her past two GRAMMY-winning albums. Given your close ties to another trailblazing woman of bluegrass, Alison Krauss, do you notice any similarities between the two and the approach they have to their craft?

They’re both amazing singers. I learned a long time ago that when Alison tells me she can do better, she does, and Molly’s the same. Both have a way of exceeding my expectations on a take when I thought they couldn’t do better than the one just before it, but every time the new one turns out head and shoulders above the one that I had been satisfied with. It’s taught me to always trust the artist no matter who it is I’m working with.

In that same sense, I think about Earls of Leicester as Flatt & Scruggs – what if they’d said “wait a minute” and gone back in [to the studio] to change one little thing? When you’re recording, everything happens so fast that you can come back to it and go in a completely different direction. That’s what I love so much about my new record, even some of the mistakes that I made on it aren’t really mistakes, they’re just different directions.

What has music taught you about yourself?

I’m an introvert who can speak in front of thousands of people and have a good time at a party, but when I’m alone I’m really alone, but in a positive way. It’s like having two lives, but I’m not acting in either one of them. What a privilege it is to be true to yourself and have a full life at the same time. I get to go out and play music, then come home and fix the faucet.

Lead Image: Madison Thorn; Alternate Image: Scott Simontacchi.