K.F. Raizor, author of the website Raizor's Edge and the book We Can't Sing and We Ain't Funny: The World of Homer and Jethro is our guest writer today on That Nashville Sound. She's ever so gracious to provide wonderful tributes to honor those to whom the music we treasure just wouldn't be the same without. Thank you, K.F.
For the third time this year, we need to pause and remember a Country Music Hall of Fame great.
Fred Foster, the guiding force behind Monument Records, died Wednesday (2/20) in Nashville. He had been in weak health for a number of years.
The greatest legacy of Fred Foster is his ear for talent. While he worked for Mercury Records in the mid-50s he heard a young man who was on the rockabilly Sun label and begged his superiors to sign the singer. Mercury passed on Elvis Presley, and the rest is history.
Maybe that failure led Foster to believe he could run a label better, so in 1958 he took every penny he had and formed Monument Records, with the logo showing a replica of the Washington Monument. Determined not to let the same mistake happen again, Foster signed another fledgling artist on Sun: Roy Orbison. From there, Foster's skills helped launch or improve the career of a number of country (Billy Walker, Billy Grammer) and rock (Tony Joe White) acts.
His two biggest successes, however, came with the discovery of an east Tennessee songbird named Dolly Parton and a Texas Army veteran named Kris Kristofferson.
Parton's early hit "Dumb Blonde" was released on Monument and produced by Foster. After her first two albums on Monument she moved on to RCA Victor and international superstardom.
Kristofferson's legacy may be linked to the infamous story about him landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash's lawn to pitch "Sunday Morning Coming Down" to Cash, but it was Fred Foster who first signed Kristofferson to a publishing, and later recording, deal. Foster was also the one who suggested that Kristofferson incorporate the name of one of the secretaries in the building, Bobbie McKee, into a song. Kristofferson's "Me and Bobbie McGee" is one of the most important songs in country and rock (thanks to Janis Joplin's cover).
Foster never slowed down, producing the Grammy-winning Last of the Breed album with Willie Nelson, Ray Price, and Merle Haggard in 2007. In 2016 Foster produced a tribute album to Ray Price. That year Foster was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the rotating "non-performer" category for his decades of service to country music as a producer, publisher, and promoter.
"I am heartbroken that my friend, Fred Foster, has passed on," Dolly Parton said in a statement. "Fred was one of the very first people to believe in me, and gave me chances no one else would or could."
Fred Foster was 87.
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