RUTHIE FOSTER 

Ruthie Foster is running a little late. “Pardon my tardiness,” she says. “I was getting a head start on dinner and tending to my six-month-old all at the same time. I keep it challenging when I’m at home.” Multitasking is but one of her talents, although it does have its limits—a desire to help raise her daughter, Maya, who she and her partner, Katie, adopted last May, while continuing to tour relentlessly didn’t leave her much time for songwriting.

That’s why her new album, Let It Burn, consists mainly of classic covers, ranging from standards like “You Don’t Miss Your Water” (sung with its composer, soul great William Bell) to contemporary classics such as “Long Time Gone” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. “The choices originated with a lot of lists of songs going back and forth between me and my producer, John Chelew,” she explains. “Plus I had been listening to Norah Jones and Cassandra Wilson, and this was a definite attempt to inject that sultriness they bring to their music.”

Genre was no consideration in the song selections—Foster has never felt the need to stick within those parameters. “That’s no fun,” she says. “It’s what keeps it interesting for me. I’m a music lover. I have so many different genres that I listen to, especially with my partner being 14 years younger than I am. My band members all listen to different things, so that influences me. We’re constantly trying to mix it up. So I dig up new things when I can, hopefully without losing my core audience.”

A native Texan who currently resides near Austin, Foster moved to Manhattan in the early ’90s to pursue musical ambitions first nurtured as a soloist in her church choir; she later joined a serviceman’s band while in the Navy. A major label courted her, sensing her mainstream potential, but her need to return home to care for her ailing mother and refusal to be typecast as a soul singer prompted her to decline the offer. “They knew I had to do what I had to do,” says Foster, 47. “I learned a lot, however. I learned about songwriting, and that a label will nudge you in whatever direction it sees fit.” Eight albums on, Foster now simply follows her instincts. “I try not to put too much thought into what I record,” she says. “I just want to reach as many people as possible.”

–Lee Zimmerman