By Brian Argabright
It was quite the homecoming for country music legend Radney Foster.
The 61-year-old singer, songwriter, author and television host performed to a packed house at the Paul Poag Theatre for the Performing Arts Friday night to help raise money for St. James Episcopal School.
The school holds a special place in Foster’s heart. His mother, Bette Foster, helped co-found the school and Foster himself is an alumnus of the school.
According to Foster, it was the first time he’d performed on stage in 15 months. At times the rust was evident as Foster struggled to tune his guitar and apologized to those in attendance that he may forget some lyrics after having been away from the spotlight for so long. But once he got going, it was an evening to remember.
Local musician Peter Herrera, who performs under the moniker Peter the 3rd, opened for Foster and set the tone for the evening with his own brand of country music. Herrera would also be a lifesaver for Foster, offering the use of his own guitar for Foster’s encore after he broke a strong on his guitar.
Foster played from his extensive catalog, but got the biggest cheers when he played tracks off his 1992 solo debut, “Del Rio, TX 1959.” He opened with “Just Call Me Lonesome,” which has become the song most associated with Foster over the years.
Foster also entertained the audience with small anecdotes about many of his songs, especially those recorded by other artists. Before he sang “Louisiana Blue,” Foster mentioned that the song was initially a hit in Texas and nowhere else in the world.
“That was until some skinny kid from Australia got a hold of it and made it a worldwide hit, which was good for my family,” Foster joked, referring to fellow country music star Keith Urban. Foster also performed “Raining on Sunday,” another song recorded by Urban and co-written by Foster.
As he strummed the opening notes of “Don’t Say Goodbye,” the audience began to clap along. Foster stopped and again joked, “If you’re gonna clap, at least get on the beat!”
It wasn’t all singing and guitar playing for Foster. At one point he put his guitar down, donned a hat and read an excerpt from his book, “For You to See the Stars,” which chronicled much of his life growing up in Del Rio. He chose the story “Bridge Club,” which detailed the pomp and circumstance surrounding the weekly tradition involving the women in his mother’s social circle and how a recent lesson learned from his father turned what should have been another gathering into a day none of them would forget, especially set against the backdrop of a day that changed the nation.
Foster also performed “Angel Flight,” “Hammer and Nails,” “Nobody Wins,” and the Sara Evans’ hit, “A Real Fine Place to Start,” a song Foster co-wrote.
Foster closed the first part of the show with the rollicking “Texas in 1880.” During the song, a string on Foster’s guitar broke. He joked about finishing the song out of tune, but the audience roared with support and applauded his performance.
For his encore, Foster performed the bilingual song, “Godspeed (Dulces Sueños).” Foster has said in interviews that the song was re-written as a bilingual prayer for children separated from their parents at the US/Mexico border after he initially recorded the song in honor of his son who was living overseas with his mother.
When he learned of the immigration crisis in 2018, and the separation of children from their families at the border, he decided to re-record the song and sought out help from local educator, and Foster’s longtime friend and one-time high school sweetheart, Deborah Hernandez-Salinas, and she helped him re-write the Spanish lyrics.
The song carried extra significance Friday night as Hernandez-Salinas had just lost her mother Wednesday, and the emotional tune brought a peaceful and somber end to what was an entertaining evening.
