Radney Foster – I love a lot of different stuff, and I’m just going to do that
ND: The Derailers mix Bakersfield honky-tonk and British Invasion sounds, as Foster & Lloyd did, right now, and, of course, they won’t put them on mainstream country radio.
RF: No way! And In 1989 they would have been a big hit. Deregulation of radio made the difference. The reason there’s no hard twang or edgy or scary music on country radio is because if there were, those would take listeners away from the classic rock or alternative or other stations owned by the same company. Country is supposed to handle just one slice of the audience. But maybe that can change some now, because their numbers are going down the toilet.
Look at the Dixie Chicks; I thank God for those women every day. If you’d told Music Row that here were three girls who were going to play their own bluegrass instruments all over their records, and they’ll make those records cheaply and sell 11 million copies, they would have said you’ve lost your friggin’ mind!
ND: People are watching what happens with that next, acoustic record of theirs with considerable interest — and you’ve got a song on it, a version of your “Godspeed” lullaby. Have you heard that?
RF: That and a couple of other cuts. It’s not that far off from my version. They actually asked Emmylou Harris to come in and sing background vocals on it; the sort of thing she did on mine, vox humana without a lyric. Martie [Seidel] plays viola, which has a little more somber tone than fiddle, and there’s lots of dobro; it sounds really wonderful.
II: GOOD SONGS ARE WRITTEN; GREAT SONGS ARE REWRITTEN
ND: You’ve worked both as an old-school “professional craftsman” songwriter, and more in the “personal” singer-songwriter model.
RF: My first deal was when they signed me as a songwriter, and that’s how I met Bill Lloyd. There were guys who would, like Goffin & King, or Holland-Dozier-Holland, just go into a room and hear that Dolly Parton was cutting a record in a month and come up with a song that afternoon that was picture-perfect for her.
But when I tried to do that, I would write absolutely the worst crap in the world. If people in the Americana world tend to think of me as a Nashville “go write a song every day” kind of guy, it couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t write that fast, for one thing!
I learned something from a couple of guys — one’s thought of as legendary Brill Building sort of guy, the other a singer-songwriter. I wrote with Harlan Howard on a couple of songs a year for the last three years. He always brought home to me that good songs are written; great songs are rewritten. And Rodney Crowell said the same thing!
ND: “Scary Old World”, which turned out to be Harlan Howard’s last song before his death, co-written with you, is on your new CD. How did he still feel about writing, and collaborating, at the end there?
RF: Oh, he loved it — and really loved writing with young writers who still had a lot of piss and vinegar; I think that’s how he thought of me. He didn’t want somebody who was so in awe that they couldn’t tell him, “That ain’t gettin’ it, Harlan.” Working with him was like going to songwriting school all over again.
ND: Do the songwriters you’ve collaborated with repeatedly have things in common?
RF: You have to fit together musically. They are people who might do things from the same perspective that I do; but there are a lot of collaborators that I’ve worked with that I’ve just frustrated the hell out of. I do like to rewrite. And I’m slow. We might get half a song and I might go home to finish it.
ND: Would there be something to be said for getting past the “singing songwriter” model — for re-establishing the tradition of rock bands and performers turning to other writers more regularly?
RF: Well I totally agree with you there. Songwriting has really taken a back seat and a downturn throughout pop, country, alternative. Many bands that are successful at major or minor labels now start to find a couple of collaborators that they like. But if you take the folk and rock tradition of Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones…
ND: They said, “The Brill Building is dead. You’d better do it yourself now,” and that became the ideal.
RF: Yeah. But that “truth” discounts Otis Redding, who was a great songwriter, and a great singer, who didn’t write everything he sang, and Marvin Gaye, an unbelievable songwriter. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings did the same.