David Foster

Born: 1949
Died:
Education: self-taught
Career: composer

David Walter Foster, OC, OBC (born November 1, 1949), is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He has been a producer for musicians including Alice Cooper, Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Michael Bublé, Chicago, Natalie Cole, The Corrs, Céline Dion, Jackie Evancho, Kenny G, Josh Groban, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Kenny Rogers, Seal, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Westlife. Foster has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. He is the chairman of Verve Records. Foster was a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark, discovered by Eirik Wangberg. The band's song, "Wildflower", was a top ten hit in 1973. When the band disbanded, Foster remained in Los Angeles and together with Jay Graydon he formed the band Airplay, whose album of the same name is often labeled as important within the west coast AOR genre. In 1975, he played on George Harrison's album Extra Texture. He followed that up by playing the Fender Rhodes and clavinet on Harrison's album Thirty Three & 1/3 a year later. In 1976 Foster joined Guthrie Thomas on Thomas' 2nd Capitol Records album, "Lie's and Alibi's," with Ringo Starr and a host of many other famed performers. Foster was a major contributor to the 1979 Earth, Wind and Fire album I Am, both as a studio player and arranger, as well as being a cowriter on six of the album's tracks. The most noteworthy being the song "After the Love Has Gone" for which Foster, and his cowriters Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin, won the 1980 Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. Foster worked as an album producer on albums for The Tubes: 1981's The Completion Backward Principle, and 1983's Outside Inside. Foster cowrote such songs as "Talk to Ya Later", the Top 40 hit "Don't Want to Wait Anymore," and the number 10 US hit "She's a Beauty". The 1980 Boz Scaggs album Middle Man saw Foster cowrite and play keyboard on some of Scaggs's most successful songs, including "Breakdown Dead Ahead", "Jojo", and "Simone", followed by "Look What You've Done to Me" from Urban Cowboy. Foster is a major contributor to Chicago's career in the early and middle 1980s, having worked as the band's producer on Chicago 16 (1982), their biggest-selling multi-platinum album Chicago 17 (1984), and Chicago 18 (1986). As was typical of his producing projects from this time period, Foster was a cowriter on songs such as the US Chart No. 1 hit "Hard to Say I'm Sorry", "Love Me Tomorrow" (US No. 22), "Stay the Night" (US No. 16), and "You're the Inspiration" (US No. 3). These four songs were cowritten with the band??s lead vocalist Peter Cetera. Foster also helped Cetera cowrite (along with Cetera's wife Diane Nini) his US No. 1 solo hit "Glory of Love" in 1986. Foster cowrote Kenny Loggins's songs "Forever" (US No. 40), from the 1985 album Vox Humana, and "Heart to Heart" (US No. 15), from the 1982 album High Adventure. Foster also worked with Country singer Kenny Rogers on the hit albums What About Me? (1984) and The Heart of the Matter (1985), both issued by RCA; the latter of which featured "The Best of Me" a song co-written by Marx that was covered by Cliff Richard in 1989, resulting in a number-two UK hit. In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine named Foster the "master of ... bombastic pop kitsch". That year, Foster composed the score for the film St. Elmo's Fire, including the instrumental "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire", which hit No. 15 on the US pop charts. Another song from the film, "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)", recorded by John Parr, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 7, 1985. In the following years, Foster continued turning out occasional film scores, including the Michael J. Fox comedy The Secret of My Success (1987), which featured a song co-written by Foster titled "The Price of Love", a track of which was performed by Roger Daltrey from the album Can't Wait to See the Movie which Foster also produced, and the Jodie Foster-Mark Harmon film Stealing Home, both of which spawned soundtrack albums with prominent Foster-penned contributions. He collaborated with then-wife Linda Thompson on the song "I Have Nothing", sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film The Bodyguard; the couple also appeared in the film's Oscars scene as the conductor and an Academy member. Foster composed "Winter Games", the theme song for 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. "Winter Games" is also the soundtrack for fountain shows at the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas. In 1995, Foster signed a deal with Warner Brothers that enabled him to set up his own boutique label, 143 Records, as a joint venture with Warner.[8] Foster gave the responsibility for running the label to then manager Brian Avnet. One of the label's first signings was a then-little known Irish folk-rock band, The Corrs, for whom he produced their debut album.[8] By 1997, Foster had come to the realisation that, in the American market at least, "logo labels" like 143 were in a "bad spot" and, as a result, Foster sold the label back to Warner and became a senior vice-president at the corporation.[8] Foster, along with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, composed "The Power of the Dream", the official song of the 1996 Summer Olympics. 2000s Foster produced major-label debut albums for Josh Groban (2001), Michael Bublé (2003),[9] Renee Olstead (2004), and Charice (2010), which were released under his 143 Records. In 2001, Foster collaborated with Lara Fabian and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra to record English-language, French-language, and bilingual (French/English) versions of the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada", for a promotion of the Canadian government. Foster, with his then-wife Thompson, composed "Light the Fire Within", sung by LeAnn Rimes for the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 2003, Foster won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for The Concert for World Children's Day. His song, "I Will Be There With You" (sung with Katharine McPhee), has been used by Japan Airlines to promote the introduction of new aircraft to its US flights. The 2001 film, The Score, starring Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando, features a Diana Krall recording, "I'll Make it Up as I Go". This song, which accompanies the film's ending credits, was composed by David Foster (together with his daughter Amy Foster-Gilles), and was used in the film. In 2005, Foster, his daughter Amy Foster-Gillies, and Beyonce Knowles wrote "Stand Up For Love" as the anthem to the World Children's Day, an annual worldwide event to raise awareness and funds for children's causes. Over the years, more than $50 million has been raised to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities and other children's organizations. Foster speaking in a ceremony for Andrea Bocelli at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 2010 In 2009, it was revealed[by whom?] that Foster had worked with songwriter Diane Warren to produce records for Whitney Houston's upcoming album, and her comeback single would be the Foster-produced "I Didn't Know My Own Strength". 2010s On December 15, 2011, it was confirmed that Foster would become the Chairman of Verve Music Group. In 2013, Foster produced Mary J. Blige's first Christmas album A Mary Christmas released October 15. The album includes 12 classics such as swing-styled "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" it also features artists such as: Marc Anthony, Jessie J, The Clark Sisters, Barbra Streisand, and Chris Botti. Foster produced Andrea Bocelli's album, Passione, released in January. The album is a collection of Mediterranean love songs featuring duets with Jennifer Lopez, Nelly Furtado, and a virtual duet with Edith Piaf.