The numerous plaudits for singer/songwriter Ruthie Foster include O magazine calling her "a blues powerhouse" and Paste magazine raving, "There's no denying the power of Foster's monstrous voice," and she received a 2009 Grammy Award nomination for her CD The Truth According to Ruthie Foster -- which is about as confident a title as one could imagine.

Yet during our recent phone interview, the Austin, Texas-based musician admits that power and confidence were by no means inherent traits.

"I knew early on that I wanted to be in music doing something," says Foster of her professional goals, "but being a singer out front was not my idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to be support. For anyone. I was kind of shy, so I didn't really see myself doing what I'm doing now.

"So yeah, I wanted to be in music, but to this capacity?" she continues. "I just kind of learned how to be out in front of people and how to entertain. You know, you just keep saying 'yes,' and all these opportunities come up."

"I started gravitating toward the blues in about 1969," says 60-year-old vocalist Shirley King. "What happened was I'd moved to Chicago from California -- I'd been staying with my dad and came back to stay with my mom -- and I was supposed to be getting married to a boyfriend I'd been liking ever since I was small. So I pretty much followed him here to Chicago to get married ... and he decided he'd had a change of mind, and wanted to marry my girlfriend.

"So I think that must've pushed me over to the blues!" exclaims King, with a deep laugh, during our recent phone interview. "Because, man, I got it then!"

Did she ever. For nearly 20 years now, the Chicago-based King has been a staple at area blues clubs; a popular touring artist who has performed in Canada, Italy, France, and even Iceland; and a darling of blues fans and critics, with Prevue magazine describing her as "a musical gem" and the Web site MNBlues.com lauding, "King sings with passion, energy, and power."

But what's surprising about King's reminiscence is that she didn't get the blues before that heartbreak of her youth, considering that her dad is the King of the Blues himself -- B.B. King.

TOY STORY 3

Sitting in the packed auditorium for a matinée screening of Toy Story 3, I was unsurprised to find that one of my fellow audience members was an infant who cried almost throughout the entire film. I would've been more irritated by the distraction if, for hefty chunks of the movie's opening and closing reels, I wasn't such a weepy infant myself.

Comedy

Laughter Relief

Adler Theatre

Friday, June 18, 8 p.m.

Feel like a laugh? Davenport's Adler Theatre knows you do, and the venue is planning to deliver wa-a-a-ay more than just one with its June 18 stand-up-comedy concert Laughter Relief - which, ironically enough, is exactly the phrase we Reader employees use to describe our weekly staff meetings.

Of course, in that situation, it's a relief from laughter.