Nashville's Del Rio Influence: An Interview with Radney Foster

July 12, 2008
By Joe Hyde
Special to LIVE!

Radney Foster hails from Del Rio. The second of four children of John and Bette Foster, born in 1959, he learned to play the guitar at age 12, living in his ancestral home on Hudson Ave. in south Del Rio.

In 1980, he set out on his own to pursue his dream of being a singer/songwriter. Using a storytelling technique to write songs, Foster says it was his upbringing in the small town of Del Rio that heavily influenced his craft.

Now in his late-40s, Foster is approaching legendary status in Nashville. If you listen to country radio for any length of time, you will probably hear a Foster-written song without even knowing it. He is also busy helping younger Texas artists hone their craft. His influence on American, Americana, and country music are far and wide, and it all started in Del Rio.

Creating a Unique Country Music Sound

“I have always tried to maintain my independence, I think the storytelling aspect of my Texas roots helps. In fact, for a long time, I kept a home in San Antonio and Nashville, and that worked reasonably well, but it was reasonably expensive,” Foster says.

When kids came along, he moved to Nashville to work mainly as a producer/songwriter instead of a singer/songwriter. But he still has time to perform 50 gigs a year. And most of them are in Texas, like Fort Worth’s Horseman Club where I interviewed him on his tour bus in mid-June.

“When I was in college in the early 1980s, I met a guy from Rocksprings, Texas named Brown Bannister,” Foster says. He encouraged him. “He told me, ‘you’re a really good songwriter. You ought to think about doing this fulltime,’” he recalls.

At that time, there was a lull in the popularity of country music. Foster explains it was an in between time after the heyday of Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger” record in the 1970s and the rapid rise of Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett in the mid- to late-1980s. Foster belongs to the latter group. He earned his spot when he met Kentucky musician Bill Lloyd. They became the first country all-male duo to chart nine Top 40 country music singles as the group named aptly, Foster & Lloyd.

“We produced our own records. We went in and were producing these demos. I played acoustic guitar, and Bill played electric. We’d hire a bass player and drummer. It was out of need and necessity [that we had to improvise] because we were only allowed so much money by our publisher to make the demo. So I’d sing lead and Bill would sing harmony, or vis versa. And we’d arrange the songs,” Foster says.

“If we could hire a keyboard player or a steel [guitar] player, we’d have ‘em play this [riff]. But we couldn’t afford it. So we’d ask each other ‘can you fake that on a guitar?’… And ‘Boom!’ just like that we had a sound without knowing we had a sound!” he recalls. That was the Foster & Lloyd sound, so unique to Nashville at that time.

“When we got signed by RCA, they said [what you do] is very creative and we want you to do that very same thing, but in a studio with better quality equipment, and with an engineer that really knows what he’s doing. And we went, ‘okay!’ and that’s how we made the first Foster & Lloyd album,” he says.

That album, self-titled “Foster & Lloyd,” was the most successful of the three records the duo recorded from 1987 until 1990, gaining three Billboard Top 10 Country singles, “Crazy Over You,” “Sure Thing,” and “What Do You Want From Me This Time.” Also on the first album was the now-mega-hit “Texas in 1880” that peeked into the Top 20 in 1987, but a re-recorded version of that song that Foster performed with Pat Green blew the doors off country radio, especially in Texas, in 2001.

Foster says “Crazy Over You” was the most significant, groundbreaking song of the Foster & Lloyd days. “First single, first number one record, first time a duo in country music had ever had a number one single out of the box. The odd thing was that during the time period when we had hit singles on country radio, we were in the top 10 of the college rock charts,” he says.

Foster attributes this to the duo’s touring schedule. “One night we’d be playing with rock and alternative bands and the next night we’d be opening for George Strait. We didn’t know any better and didn’t really care. We were just happy that somebody besides our parents liked the music,” Foster says with a laugh.

“We were relentless,” he says. “We took the way we did our set lists from The Ramones and The Clash. The moment one song was done, ‘boom!’ we started the next. We wanted no down time,” he says.

Foster & Lloyd also teamed to write hot country songs for other artists. A memorable one released just as the duo was breaking into the Nashville scene was “Since I Found You,” performed by Sweethearts of the Rodeo. That song is now a standard country song heard most everywhere.

Del Rio, Texas, 1959

Foster hasn’t forgotten his roots. In fact, he is appreciative of his childhood influences in Del Rio that helped him gain star status.

“Del Rio, Texas is my hometown, my dad’s hometown and my granddad’s hometown. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience growing up in Del Rio and I have many dear friends there today,” he says.

Influences don’t necessarily make a music star, though. Foster’s motivation for pursuing music was simple, he admits. He did it to attract the girls.

“There were all these older, cool guys, like from the church youth groups, coming to the house. And I’m in junior high when I saw that the guys with the guitar always got noticed by the girls,” Foster says. That’s where he wanted to be.

It also helped that his dad played guitar.

Foster’s Del Rio roots are in full display on his debut solo record, “Del Rio, Texas, 1959,” titled for the place and year Foster was born.

“That album is really indicative of my home and that’s why we titled it. You had this renegade border radio, XERF, across the border when I was a kid. Paul Kallinger was spinning country music, choosing anything that was going to keep truckers awake. And he didn’t care if it was Creedence Clearwater Revival [CCR] from California or Buck Owens from Bakersfield, or Asleep at the Wheel, or Willie Nelsen and the renegade Texas music stuff that was going on at the time, or if it was Nashville. If he thought it was cool and it had a beat he thought would keep somebody awake, that’s what he played,” he recalls.

“Being a little kid hiding underneath the covers listening to the transistor [radio], that’s what I heard! It had a huge musical influence on me,” he says.

“If you listen to that record, [Del Rio, Texas, 1959] it’s kinda got all of that in there. It includes everything from Buck Owens to CCR to Jim Reeves to George Jones in that album,” Foster says.

The solo debut was a resounding success and charted “Just Call Me Lonesome” and “Nobody Wins” to number ten and two, respectively on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles and Tracks. That record’s “Easier Said Than Done” and “Hammer and Nails” also broke into the Top 40.

Many of those songs have become ubiquitous in country music. “I can’t walk into a bar and not have the band play ‘Just Call Me Lonesome,’” Foster says. “It’s easy to play and it’s become a standard in many respects. That is a huge thing for me,” Foster says.

But the song that means the most to Foster off that album is one he wrote about a black cowboy, a buffalo soldier, influenced by Brackettville’s Fort Clark history titled “Went for a Ride.”

“That song has become a live show staple,” Foster says. “I mean the live audiences will kinda riot if we don’t play it, especially in a lot of the country bars we play. They really, really love that song,” he says.

Fitting in the Nashville Scene

Foster has risen between the cracks of the country music industry, straddling the pop-culture of Nashville’s polishing and the grimy and raw music of Texas renegade. When Foster started playing, the Waylon and Willie renegade movement was winding down, and Nashville was about to embark on the rapid rise in popularity of The Judds, a mother and daughter duo, Garth Brooks, and Shania Twain. Foster’s live shows fit in nicely with renegade country, or a genre called “Alt Country,” or “Texas country.” But his music writing is perfect for mainstream country, too. And it was Foster’s songwriting that really brought home the bacon for him.

Meanwhile Foster participated in the music industry as it underwent an extreme transformation that really isn’t over yet, with technology as its catalyst.

“Back in the 1980s, record deals were indentured servitude,” he says. “Once you got in, you could never get out, unless it was their decision, not yours. There were so many ‘ifs’ and ipso facto clauses, that they could pretty much hold you there for a long, long time. And making records was really incredibly expensive. The thing that has come full circle is that you can make a record in your basement now, pretty cheaply,” he says.

And because of computers and the Internet today, choices of music of varying quality are abundant. “You can make a lousy record in your basement, or you can make a creative record. The money part matters less today than the creativity,” Foster says. “Technology has opened up the [creative] doors of music.”

Add to that the current popularity of the Texas music scene, and Foster says the opportunities are boundless. “People still like to get dressed up on a Saturday night and go see live music in Texas,” he says. Of the 50 shows per year he and his band play, most of them are in Texas.

Foster believes Texans’ attraction to live music has as much to do with this region’s love of storytelling as it does with going out on a fancy date. This atmosphere allows Foster’s songwriting skills to shine.

Foster’s father, John Foster, a well-known attorney in Del Rio, introduced me to his son’s music with 2002’s record, “Another Way to Go.” John Foster particularly liked the single, “Everyday Angel.” The stanzas of the song describe acts of kindness of everyday people, starting with heroes from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

“I had two friends who were in the World Trade center on September 11th and they are alive and well today because of the firemen and Port Authority Police who were on duty that day. We went to dinner with a friend and she told me the story of her friend, Dave, from Rescue Squad 1 in New York. It was his anniversary, and had worked double shifts that day and saw the buildings on fire. He knew they were going to need every man on or off duty to handle this. He went back to work and got on a truck and never came home,” Foster says.

But the song also has a connection closer to home.

“There’s a story about a woman who went to church with us in Nashville and another is about my dad who helped [another] woman going through a divorce [when we were growing up]. She came and lived with us for a while. They are all true stories,” he says. “And at about that time, my father was getting older and about to retire and I was looking for a way to honor my dad the best [way] I could. And it worked. It became a hit here at home [in Texas], and somewhat throughout the rest of the United States.”

The song has taken on a more bittersweet meaning for Foster now. His father passed away in May.

“When my father passed, I was in Chicago, Illinois. I got a call from a member of my family two hours before show time. I called my road manager and said we’ve got to cancel the show. I can’t do this. I wandered the streets probably for about 20 minutes not knowing what to do with myself. And I thought about it and I prayed. And I thought you know, I don’t think that’s what daddy would want me to do. He would say people paid good money to come see you. They’re counting on you. You need to go play that show,” he says.

Foster took the stage and played what he says was one of the most emotional performances of his career.

“‘Everyday Angel’ is almost always a song in our set. When we got to that song, I had the bartender bring me a shot of Jameson’s Whiskey, and asked the entire bar in Chicago make a toast to my dad. It was one of the greater moments in my life,” he says.

The New Texas Country Music Movement

Like the rising tide of popularity of Texas artists that Foster benefited from in the 1980s, there is a new wave underway today. And Foster is right in the middle of it, but more so as a producer and songwriter than a performer. His experiences allow him to evaluate the new music through the looking glass of an old sage of sorts.

“There’s good and bad things happening in the Texas country music scene just like there are good and bad things happening in Nashville, Los Angeles, New York, and every where else in the world. I meet so many acts that either open for us, or sometimes we are opening for them (and they can’t believe it) that are fans, and you always get to have a conversation,” Foster says.

“The thing I always tell them is to think outside the box. Don’t sound like everybody else. Don’t write songs like them. Write like yourself. Roger Miller wrote stuff very different from Willie Nelson. But they were both brilliant. And strive to be as excellent as you can be,” he adds.

“In one sense, the Texas country music—it’s really an alternative country music scene, it just happens to be here at home—is going through growing pains, and that’s a good thing. But I think that the thing that’s going to happen is that you are going to see more and more corporate entities wanting to become more involved in [Texas country music]. There’s money being made down here! That’s both a good and bad thing. It helps people get their music out there. And the ways people are getting their music out there are ever changing,” he says.

Foster believes that the current Texas country scene is already shaping Nashville. With so many live venues paying good money to bands traveling the Texas and Oklahoma region, Texas acts are obtaining experience that cannot be gained anywhere else. “What everyone is waiting for is for a Texas country act to blow up, and still own their own soul in the process. That is, to have a big hit record without ‘selling out,’” Foster says.

Foster refers to the mythical competition between Nashville and Texas. Nashville is more polished, relying on iconic popular culture to push its music. In Texas, there are the renegade artists such as Willie Nelson or David Alan Coe of the past. Today there is Roger Creager or Jason Boland forging his own “anti-teeny bopper” sound. But like Foster, who is from Texas but lives and works in Nashville, so too did the mythical icons of the Texas renegades. And the latest crop is finding help from Nashville today as well.

“There has always been a connection—a symbiosis if you will—between the two places. The icons of the Texas singer/songwriter movement in the 1980s all lived in Nashville: Guy Clark, me (Foster & Lloyd), Steve Earl, Rodney Crowell, and Nanci Griffith. They all lived in Nashville. And that is the middle generation, if you will, between Waylon and Willie and what is going on now,” he says.

Texas artist Brandon Rhyder explains that it is harder to decide to sign with a Nashville label, or to choose the right one, because he says he is already making plenty of money. And that moves up the financial bar for record executives. Acts like Rhyder are already making it without Nashville. But Foster offers sage advice to the younger generation.

“The good side of that is that you can play 200 gigs a year and make a really good living. The problem is that you gotta play 200 gigs a year! There is no leverage. You’ll never be Aerosmith. You’ll never have an international audience if all you do is play here. And then to expand your audience, you have to lose money to play in college towns [outside the Texas region] where they’ve never heard of you. That’s to take your audience to the next level. And then, you’ve gotta go lose money to play in London. [As an independent artist] you always have to have the attitude that these [shows] are going to make money and these aren’t going to make anything. But you have to go do them, in order to expand your audience,” he says. Getting backed by a Nashville label will alleviate those growing pains. And in many cases a big record label can accelerate someone’s rise to stardom, according to Foster.

Foster says this is why eventually, most young Texas country artists are going to want to obtain a major record label deal to leverage their work.

Foster the producer (he likens it to being a ‘knob twister’ in the studio) is working with several bright, young Texas musicians. All of them have earned regional success. The Randy Rogers Band is the most well known.

“The Randy Rogers Band is truly a ‘real’ band. They are very democratic in a lot of ways. They are the best example of guys who are good musicians who are in the trenches of playing every night together, and really, really working hard at it. They have become great musicians. They continually have a desire to get better and better all the time. To me, that is a huge plus. The other [benefit] is that same level of energy is expressed by Randy as a [song] writer. He and ‘Chops,’ John Richardson who is the bass player, have really, really strived to become great [song] writers,” he says.

“They are a lot of fun to work with. We made their last record at a residency studio in south Louisiana. We were there for two weeks and didn’t come up for air until the record was done,” he adds.

The new record is probably going to be self-titled and released later this year, according to Foster. Randy Rogers is bridging the great divide between Texas and Tennessee. He is published on Nashville’s Mercury label.

Foster just began working with Brandon Rhyder. “He’s a great young singer/songwriter. I think the thing he brings to the party is that he is very different. He doesn’t look at the conventions of what the music business here [Texas] says what he needs to have or be to have a hit, nor anywhere else for that matter,” he says. Rhyder’s first Foster-produced record, “Brandon Rhyder Live” hit number one on the Texas music charts this year.

Foster believes Rhyder has great crossover appeal and can grow a sizable audience outside the Texas circuit. “[His songs] are very eclectic. It’s very well written. He really, really dug in hard. And I have great respect for him and he is a lot of fun to work with. He is an amazing vocalist. This record [we just produced, to be released this year] is the first time he realized he had the [voice] range of Roy Orbison. I pushed him and made him sing that high,” he says.

That record, “Brandon Rhyder Everynight” is shipping this summer. The first single from that record, “Pea Pie” is already on his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/brandonrhyder.

Foster has started to work with Roger Creager, mainstay of the current Texas country music movement from Aggieland. “Roger just has guts,” Foster says. “He just goes out there with guts. He is just going to do it his way. That can be a struggle sometimes in the studio, but it can also be a good thing,” he says. Foster co-produced Creager’s next record, “Here It Is,” scheduled for release in August.

You’ll Probably Recognize Foster’s Songs Everywhere

Radney Foster has become The Godfather is the latest Texas country music movement through his producing. But he’s not standing still with his own band, either. “We’re going to make a new record this fall, and have it out sometime next year,” he says.

A new record will probably be a double-boom for Foster. His current record, “This World We Live In,” has songs Foster wrote that are being recorded by some heavy-hitters in Nashville. Brooks & Dunn recorded Foster’s “Drunk on Love” from “This World.” Gary Allan recorded “Half of my Mistakes” from the same record. And Dierks Bentley recorded “Sweet and Wild.”

Other popular Foster songs you may have heard include “Measure of a Man” (Jack Ingram), “Come in from the Cold” (Marc Broussard), “Raining on Sunday” (Keith Urban), “Real Fine Place to Start” (Sara Evans). He also wrote or co-wrote “Before I Knew Your Name,” the most recent Brandon Rhyder number one hit on the Texas charts, and Rhyder’s “No One Stays in Love Alone.” Both of those songs are on Rhyder’s “Live” record.

Does Foster mind that others are capitalizing on his songwriting? “It’s always good. These guys can put a whole lot more zeroes on their sales than I can, and that’s going to help me put kids through school and shoes on babies’ feet.,” he says.

Discography

This World We Live In
(April 2006)

1. Drunk On Love
2. Sweet And Wild
3. Kindness Of Strangers
4. Big Idea
5. Half Of My Mistakes
6. New Zip Code
7. I Won't Lie To You
8. Prove Me Right
9. Fools That Dream
10. Never Gonna Fly

And Then There's Me
(The Back Porch Sessions)
(2004)

A special website only acoustic album, featuring “If You Can’t Be Good (Be Lucky)” and “Little Babies Like To Suck On Their Toes.”

1. Figure It Out
2. Never Gonna Fly
3. Half of My Mistakes
4. Forever is Over (Bourbon and Branch Water)
5. And Then There's Me
6. If You Can't Be Good (Be Lucky)
7. Little Babies Like To Suck on Their Toes
8. Fools That Dream
9. Easier Said Than Done
10. Making It Up As I Go Along
11. GodSpeed

Another Way To Go
(2002)

Featuring “Everyday Angel” and “Real Fine Place To Start.”

1. Real Fine Place To Start
2. Everyday Angel
3. Again
4. Sure Feels Right
5. Disappointing You
6. I Got What You Need
7. Tired Of Pretending
8. What It Is That You Do
9. Scary Old World (with Chely Wright)
10. Love Had Something To Say About It
11. What Are We Doing Here Tonight
12. Just Sit Still
13. Another Way To Go

Are You Ready For The Big Show?
(2001)

Radney’s first live album, cut in Austin. Featuring the studio bonus hit, “Texas In 1880” (with Pat Green)

1. Tonight
2. God Knows When
3. Just Call Me Lonesome
4. School of Hard Knocks
5. Went For A Ride
6. I'm Used To It
7. Folding Money
8. Leaning On What Love Can Do
9. How You Play The Hand
10. Nobody Wins
11. I'm In
12. Bonus: Texas In 1880 - Radney Foster/Pat Green
13. Bonus: Tonight

See What You Want To See
(1999)

1. I've Got A Picture
2. I'm In
3. Raining On Sunday
4. Folding Money
5. Angry Heart
6. The Kiss
7. You Were So Right
8. God Knows When
9. The Lucky Ones
10. Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)

Labor of Love
(1995) Arista

1. Willin' To Walk (Foster)
2. Labor of Love (Foster-Bullens)
3. My Whole Wide World (Foster-Bullens)
4. Never Say Die (Foster-Ducas)
5. Jesse's Soul (Foster-DuBois)
6. Everybody Gets the Blues (Foster-Ducas)
7. If It Were Me (Foster-Richey)
8. Broke Down (Foster-Nicholson)
9. Precious Pearl (Foster)
10. Last Chance for Love (Foster)
11. Walkin' Talkin' Woman (Foster)
12. Making It Up As I Go Along (Foster)

Del Rio, TX 1959
(1992) Arista

1. Just Call Me Lonesome (Foster-Ducas)
2. Don't Say Goodbye (Foster)
3. Easier Said Than Done (Foster)
4. A Fine Line (Foster)
5. Went for a Ride (Foster-Randall)
6. Nobody Wins (Foster-Richey)
7. Louisiana Blue (Foster-Chapman)
8. Closing Time (Foster-Sager)
9. Hammer and Nails (Foster-Bullens)
10. Old Silver (Foster)

Foster & Lloyd
Essential Foster and Lloyd
(1996)

1. Crazy Over You (Foster-Lloyd)
2. What Do You Want From Me This Time? (Foster-Lloyd)
3. Sure Thing (Foster-Lloyd)
4. Hard To Say No (Foster-Lloyd)
5. Don't Go Out With Him (Foster-Lloyd)
6. Texas In 1880 (Foster)
7. You Can Come Cryin' To Me (Foster)
8. Faster and Louder (Lloyd-Foster)
9. Fair Shake (Clark-Foster-Lloyd)
10. She Knows What She Wants (Foster-Lloyd)
11. Happy For A While (Lloyd-Foster)
12. Fat Lady Sings (Lloyd-Foster)
13. After I'm Gone (Foster-Lloyd)
14. Suzette (Lloyd)
15. Before the Heartache Rolls In (Foster-Lloyd)
16. Is It Love (Foster-Lloyd)
17. Can't Have Nothin' (Foster-Lloyd)
18. All Said and Done (Foster-Lloyd-Gill)
19. White Train (Holsapple)
20. Whoa (Foster-Lloyd)

Foster & Lloyd
Version of the Truth
(1990)

1. Is It Love? (Foster-Lloyd)
2. Version of the Truth (Foster-Lloyd)
3. I Wishdaida Run Into You (Foster-Lloyd)
4. Leavin' In Your Eyes (Foster-Lloyd)
5. Side of the Road (Foster-Lloyd)
6. It's a Done Deal (Foster-Lloyd)
7. Lonesome Run (Foster-Lloyd)
8. It's Over (Foster-Lloyd)
9. All Said and Done (Foster-Lloyd-Gill)
10. Workin' On Me (Foster-Lloyd)
11. Whoa (Foster-Lloyd)

Foster & Lloyd
Faster & Louder
(1989)

1. Faster and Louder (Lloyd-Foster)
2. Fair Shake (Clark-Foster-Lloyd)
3. She Knows What She Wants (Foster-Lloyd)
4. Happy For a While (Lloyd-Foster)
5. Fat Lady Sings (Lloyd-Foster)
6. After I'm Gone (Foster-Lloyd)
7. I'll Always Be Here Loving You (Foster)
8. Suzette (Lloyd)
9. Before the Heartache Rolls In (Foster-Lloyd)
10. Lie to Yourself (Lloyd-Terry)

Foster & Lloyd
(1987)

1. Turn Around (Foster-Lloyd)
2. Crazy Over You (Foster-Lloyd)
3. What Do You Want From Me This Time? (Foster-Lloyd)
4. Token of Love (Lloyd)
5. Sure Thing (Foster-Lloyd)
6. Hard to Say No (Foster-Lloyd)
7. The Part I Know By Heart (Foster-Lloyd)
8. Don't Go Out With Him (Foster-Lloyd)
9. Texas in 1880 (Foster)
10. You Can Come Cryin' To Me (Foster)