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is a delicate acoustic blues song with just Colin’s guitar and vocals as well as delicious harp from
Mr. Musselwhite. The closing ‘Open Your Mind’ is a typical Colin Linen production, very atmo-
spheric with haunting slide guitar and echoey gospel backing vocals from the McCrary sisters,
“we were born when the world was young, we chased the sun…”. I must admit that on my initial

listens I’m a bit underwhelmed by this record, there are some great tracks here - ‘Protection’, ‘I’m
Still Alive’, ‘Devilment’, ‘In My Own Dream’ and ‘Come to Find Out’ – but I thought that there were
too many subtle ballads in the middle of the record - albeit well-played and great-sounding – and
I’m just hoping that they grow on me in future.

Graham Harrison

Ruthie Foster—Mileage—Sun Records

I always find it refreshing when someone takes a familiar
(over-played?) song and puts a new twist on it – and Ruthie
Foster certainly does just that here with the Arthur Crudup
(Elvis Presley) song ‘That’s Alright’ brought right up to date
with swampy guitars and backing vocals. This is Ruthie’s tenth
studio album and it was produced by fellow Texan Tyler Bry-
ant (Shakedown) and co-written with him and Rebecca Lovell
(his wife and one-half of Larkin Poe). The opening title track
has Ruthie singing about her life’s journey over a soulful back-

ing of guitar, organ and subtle brass, while ‘Rainbow’ explores
Ruthie’s experiences as a gay black woman with similar soulful backing and a nice guitar solo.
‘Good for My Soul’ and ‘Heartshine’ are heartfelt soul ballads with Ruthie’s amazing voice power-
ing both along, while ‘Slow Down’ blasts off with crashing drums and riffing brass.

‘Six Mile Water’ is a lovely song with Ruthie singing about her childhood over sympathetic
backing with marching drums and tuneful organ and powerful climaxes that add drama but let
Ruthie’s voice soar over the top.

‘Done’ is another banger and has Ruthie singing with just Larkin Poe – she shares the vocals with
Rebecca, with Megan adding her keening lap steel slide guitar. ‘Take It Easy’ is brass infused
Memphis soul and the album closes with a live track, the emotional piano-led ballad ‘See You
When I See You’.

I must admit I’m not a fan of Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown so I wasn’t expecting too much
from this record – I couldn’t have been more wrong - he does a fantastic job here, he brings a
more contemporary edge to Ruthie’s sound but all the while letting her fantastic voice dominate
every track. Ruthie is one of those singers who could sing the phone book and still make it sound
good but I have to give credit to Tyler (and Rebecca) for contributing to both the song writing and
also the production to make this an excellent piece of work.

Graham Harrison