In the early 1990s Atlantic Records offered Ruthie Foster a lucrative deal to become the next pop star, and she walked out the door. Born in 1964 in rural Texas into a gospel family, she was a featured church soloist by 14, studied music and audio engineering at McLennan Community College in Waco while fronting a blues band, then joined the Navy and sang funk and pop in the recruitment band Pride. That technical and musical cross-training gave her the leverage to say no.

This episode follows her 1993 return to College Station to care for her mother while working as a television camera operator, the self-produced 1997 debut Full Circle, a partnership with indie label Blue Corn Music, the Memphis-recorded The Truth According to Ruthie Foster and its Grammy nomination, and Let It Burn with the Blind Boys of Alabama, William Bell and members of ...