Listen to Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear — good music is in their blood
When Madisen Ward takes the stage, he holds his mother Ruth’s arm. He walks with her around the small circular table, helps her into her chair, adjusts her microphone stand, and hands her her guitar. The stage at the Lincoln Center in Washington, D.C. looks much smaller during their set than I’ve ever seen it before. Cast in a blue light, Ruth Ward, 62, waits for her son Madisen, 26, to take a seat across from her at the table before they begin their first set.
Their band, Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear, performs songs rooted in blues and soul with the twang of folk for thirty minutes before The Tallest Man on Earth comes on stage, but their opening set resonates long after the headliner has finished. There’s something intimate about the way this mother/son team plays their music at a small table with only the addition of a bassist and a drummer for a few songs.
Their show feels more like being invited into the Ward family kitchen than watching professional performers. No special effects — just ambient stage lighting that changes with every other song. There aren’t any fancy stage settings, or microphone kicks. When the Wards talk to the audience, they speak simply; there aren’t any canned stories or perfectly-timed jokes. Watching Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear is watching passion in its purest form.
A family history of music
Ruth Ward has been performing music since she was a teenager. “In the early years I was into Motown and R&B,” Ruth told me over the phone. “When I got into high school I discovered folk singers. People weren’t just writing about their babies and their loves, they were writing about real things. That really appealed to me.”
She performed with friends and travelled around for a few years before she met Kenneth Ward, now her husband of 35 years. Just before they got married, she released an album of original songs titled Moment by Moment. They settled down, and had three children together. Madisen was the third.
“I love playing music, and especially when the kids were younger, it was a way to relax,” Ruth told me. “I would play out every now and then when they were young. I might take a 2 or 3 month break, but I always came back to music.”
As her kids got older, Ruth started to play sets with her friends in Kansas City. Theirs was a house full of music. As Madisen grew he realized that he, too, wanted to create music and he began writing songs.“I started writing and slid into this whole world of songwriting… It was really liberating and extreme to realize how much freedom you have,” Madisen told me. “My mom was still playing and performing at that time. Sometimes, we’d play together. I found myself singing on her songs and her singing on my sound.”
The two started playing together. Just covering songs by other bands at first. The way they clicked was undeniable.