J. D. Foster | |
|---|---|
 JD Foster in Ithaca NY 2013 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | August 7, 1953 Indiana, United States |
| Genres | Rock, alternative country |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, producer |
| Instrument(s) | Bass, guitar, bass clarinet |
| Years active | 1986–present |
J. D. Foster is an American record producer, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter. He is known for working with country and Americana performers including Dwight Yoakam and Patty Griffin.
J. D. Foster has produced albums and songs for a wide variety of artists and contributed as a bassist and multi-instrumentalist on many alternative, rock, and country albums. His list of collaborations includes Marc Ribot, Patty Griffin, Calexico, Ronnie Lane, Richard Buckner, Lucinda Williams, Vinicio Capossela, Anna Coogan, 17 Hippies, Il Pan Del Diavolo, Eszter Balint and many more. As well as being a producer, Foster is also a songwriter, musician, and recording artist.
J. D. Foster started his career in Central Florida, playing bass with numerous Orlando, Gainesville, and Saint Augustine musicians. He lived in Los Angeles throughout most of the 1980s playing with Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores, Pete Anderson and many other country artists. He started his major label recording career as bassist in L.A. with Dwight Yoakam in 1986. His work with Yoakam earned three platinum albums, saw tours all across America and Europe, as well as appearances on Austin City Limits , Solid Gold, [1] The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson , The Grammys , [2] and various music videos. [3] [4]
During these years Foster also appeared "sidelining" in several TV shows and feature films. In this capacity he worked with artists including: T. G. Sheppard, Ben Vereen, Janie Fricke, Robert Blake, Drew Barrymore, and Madonna in the film Vision Quest .
Foster relocated to Austin, Texas in 1988. There he joined The True Believers with Alejandro Escovedo. He also worked with Escovedo & Jon Dee Graham in the Make Believers. Foster played with Ronnie Lane in his Texas version of Slim Chance and appeared in Rupert Williams' documentary The Passing Show: The Life and Music of Ronnie Lane (2006), where he is interviewed about this association. [5] During his Austin tenure, Foster started a band with Danny Barnes and Rich Brotherton, The Barnburners, releasing one recording. He and Brotherton also played regularly with songwriter David Halley. Foster and Halley performed together in different productions of Bad Girls Upset By the Truth, a musical play by Jo Carol Pierce. [6] During this time he worked on recordings with The Silos and tour dates with Lucinda Williams, among others.
Foster moved to New York City in 1991 and began working with artists in the improvisational scene and has worked closely with Marc Ribot on many projects through the years. He toured the US, Europe, and Japan with Ribot's noise combo Shrek, appearing at events such as the Saalfelden Jazz Festival. [7] Foster again toured Europe and Japan with Green on Red in the early 1990s. They performed on European television, at major venues and rock festivals, including the London Fleadh, Glastonbury Festival, and Roskilde Festival.
In 2004–2005, Foster toured and recorded with Patty Griffin joining her on the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue tour alongside Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings. He also performed with Griffin on Austin City Limits and Late Night with David Letterman . [8] Foster worked on Laura Cantrells' 2005 release [9] [10] before he joined Calexico in the following year. In 2006, he produced the Calexico album Garden Ruin . [11] For the album, his choices for production were "very adventurous in details — using unusual percussion, or wanting to bring in instruments like banjo ukuleles, bass melodica, electric mandolin, and tenor guitar." [12] Foster played bass on T-Bone Burnett's album Tooth of Crime (2008) as well as appearing in the Signature Theatre production of the play in the 1996–1997 season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
In 2010, Foster formed The Slummers with Dan Stuart, Antonio Gramentieri, and Diego Sapignoli. They released their debut album Love of the Amateur and toured Europe a year later. In the second half of 2013, Foster worked with the Ithaca-based songwriter Anna Coogan to record a co-written collection of songs for a new album. [13] Foster had produced Coogan's first solo album The Nocturnal Among Us in 2009. [14] The duo performed dates in Germany, Netherlands, London, and New York City in 2014. They were joined by drummer Brian Wilson aka Willie B. (Johnny Dowd) on several dates. In October 2014, Foster and Coogan released the album Birth of the Stars on Elevate Records.
Foster often performs in the house band of the Radio Free Song Club with David Mansfield and Dave Schramm. [15]
J. D. Foster joined the 17 Hippies in Berlin to take part in the production of Phantom Songs (2011). [16]
In recent years Foster has been working extensively with Italian musicians and is strongly associated with the up-and-coming "Palermo Sound." [17] An Italian record review states: "Tra l'altro Storia Di Una Corsa denota chiaramente un sound moderno ma non per questo in linea con quello prevedibile e gettonato dai progetti musicali più pacchiani e quotati del momento. Determinanti, in tal senso, sono stati i gusti, le scelte, di chi questo disco l'ha prodotto a livello artistico senza tralasciare alcunché: JD Foster, appunto. " [18]
Foster won the Austin Chronicle Music Awards for producer and bassist of the year for 1989–1990 [19]
Describing his role as a producer, Foster says:
The Australian songwriter Simon Bonney said about Foster in an interview from 1993 :
Joey Burns (Calexico):
Dwight David Yoakam is an American country singer-songwriter, actor, and film director. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.. Yoakam had considerable success throughout the late 1980s onward, with a total of ten studio albums for Reprise Records. Later projects have been released on Audium, New West, Warner, and Sugar Hill Records.
Marc Ribot is an American guitarist and composer.
Calexico is a Tucson, Arizona-based indie rock band. Founded in 1996, the band's two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, first played together in Los Angeles as part of the group Giant Sand. They have recorded a number of albums on Quarterstick Records, and their 2005 EP, In the Reins, recorded with Iron & Wine, reached the Billboard 200 album charts. Their musical style is influenced by traditional Latin sounds of mariachi, conjunto, cumbia, and tejano mixed with country, jazz, and post-rock.
Richard Carl Buckner is an American singer-songwriter born in California, United States. After living in Edmonton, Alberta, for a number of years, he relocated to Brooklyn, New York.
If There Was a Way is the fourth studio album by American country music artist Dwight Yoakam, released on October 30, 1990. Five of its tracks would rise into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 1991 and 1992. They were "Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose" at No. 11, "You're the One" at No. 5, "Nothing's Changed Here" at No. 15, "It Only Hurts When I Cry" at No. 7 "Send a Message to My Heart", at No. 47, and finally the No. 18 "The Heart That You Own".
Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room is the third studio album by American country music singer Dwight Yoakam, released on August 2, 1988. The album contains Yoakam's first two No. 1 Hot Country Singles singles. The first was "Streets of Bakersfield," a duet with country music veteran Buck Owens, who had originally released a version of the song in 1973. The second was an original composition of Yoakam's titled "I Sang Dixie." A third song on the album, "I Got You," also an original composition, peaked at No. 5. The title song, "Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room ," also charted, but only to the No. 46 position.
Eszter Balint is a Hungarian-American singer, songwriter, violinist, and actress.
Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. is the debut studio album by American country music artist Dwight Yoakam. This was Yoakam's first time working with long-time collaborator, record producer-guitarist Pete Anderson. The album became the first of three consecutive albums by Yoakam to reach number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.
Hillbilly Deluxe is the second studio album by American country music singer-songwriter, Dwight Yoakam. Released in 1987, it was Yoakam's second consecutive No. 1 album on the Billboard Country Albums chart. Four tracks were released as singles with each becoming Top 10 hits on the Hot Country Singles chart in 1987 and 1988.
A Long Way Home is the ninth studio album by American country music artist Dwight Yoakam, released on June 9, 1998. It reached No. 11 on the Billboard Country Album, with two of its tracks charting on the Hot Country Singles chart. "Things Change" reached No. 17, while "These Arms" peaked at No. 57. Yoakam wrote all the songs on the album himself.
Vinicio Capossela is an Italian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist.
Kostas Lazarides is a Greek-born American country music songwriter, known professionally as Kostas. He has written for several country music artists, including Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, George Strait, and Travis Tritt, and has won eleven awards from Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI). In addition, he has recorded a self-titled album Kostas on First American Records (1980) and an album entitled X S in Moderation on Liberty Records (1994). He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019.
¡Muy Divertido! is a studio album recorded in New York City by Marc Ribot with Los Cubanos Postizos. It was released April 25, 2000 on Atlantic Records.
Great Jewish Music: Marc Bolan is a tribute album featuring the music of English singer/songwriter Marc Bolan of the band T.Rex. Produced by Danny Cohen, it was released on John Zorn's label Tzadik Records in 1998 as part of their series on "Radical Jewish Culture", following similar prior tributes to Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg.
Just Lookin' for a Hit is the first compilation album by American country music artist Dwight Yoakam. It includes eight singles from his 1980s albums for Reprise Records, as well as two newly recorded cover songs: "Long White Cadillac," originally recorded by The Blasters, and "Sin City," originally recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Great Jewish Music: Serge Gainsbourg is a tribute album featuring the music of French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Executive-produced by John Zorn, it was released on Tzadik Records in 1997 as part of their series on "Radical Jewish Culture".
Silent Movies are 13 solo guitar compositions by Marc Ribot released September 28, 2010 on Pi Recordings.
Your Turn is a studio album by American guitarist Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog which was released in April 2013 on Northern Spy Records.
Bloomed is the debut album by the American musician Richard Buckner. It was released in 1994 via the German label Glitterhouse, and the following year in the United States via Dejadisc. A 1999 reissue appended five bonus tracks.
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