Ruth

Ruth (or its variants) may refer to:

Places

In geography

In space

People

Surname

Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster is an American singer-songwriter of blues and folk music. Foster was 48 years old in May 2012.

Foster is from Gause, Texas and comes from a family of gospel singers. She studied music at McLennan Community College and then worked in the US Navy, where she started performing. Her debut was released in 1997 and she has performed in North America, Europe and Australia. She has often been compared to Bonnie Raitt and Aretha Franklin.

In June 2009, Foster toured with The Blind Boys of Alabama. In December 2009 her CD, The Truth According to Ruthie Foster, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In May 2010, at the Blues Music Awards, Foster was announced as Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year. She was a featured artist at the Byron Bay Bluesfest in Australia in 2011.

Awards and honors

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945), is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.

In the mid-1960s, Clapton left the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop". Furthermore, he formed blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech. For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of JJ Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded with Derek and the Dominos; and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded with Cream. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which featured in his Unplugged album.

List of jazz festivals

This is an incomplete list of notable jazz music festivals, broken down geographically. The festivals mentioned here should have at least some international recognition. This list generally excludes multi-genre festivals with only a partial focus on jazz, though such fusion festivals may be listed under individual subtopics of Jazz festivals by country.

Jazz has appeared in various festivals since the turn of the century, after the genre originated in African American communities during the late 19th and early 20th century. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop and cool jazz emerged in the 1940s, and the 1950s saw free jazz, hard bop, and modal jazz. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electronic instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock, with large festivals exhibiting the sounds in response. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called "smooth jazz" became successful, and other jazz styles include Afro-Cuban jazz and various fusion genres.