- Place – Nashville
- Time – 1979/80
- Characters – Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton-Wesley Rose, Jerry Foster, Nutty Walt
Discovering Nashville.
Having finished the Bill Haley recordings at Fame studios, I decided to give Nashville a visit.
Bill gave me a few names and contact numbers of some of his friends there and I was keen to meet up with some of them.
When I arrived in Nashville, the first call I made was to Porter Wagoner also known as, Mr. Grand Ole Opry.
His syndicated television program, The Porter Wagoner Show, aired from 1960 to 1981.
I told him I had just finished some recordings with Bill at Fame in Muscle Shoals and Bill had suggested I look him up when I got into town.
Porter immediately invited me over to his office on Music Row.
Dolly Parton
On my arrival he made me feel very welcome.
Porter introduced me to Carla Scarborough and their young assistant Walter Hale, they all worked with Porter and the Owe-Par Music Publishing Company, which was owned by Dolly Parton.
I did find out some years later that Dolly’s song, I Will Always Love You, was written for Porter.
Whilst having a drink with Walt sometime later, I told him a joke I had heard about Dolly.
“You know when she leans forward they pull the wrinkles out of her face.”
Walt roared with laughter, but totally floored me a few days later by telling me he told Dolly the joke.
Her reaction? He told me was she laughed her head off, I will always love Dolly for her wonderful sense of humour.
We spent some time discussing Bill and his new recordings, Porter later went on to personally introduce me to everyone else on the list that Bill had given me.
Lunch with a Rose
I was even lucky enough to be taken to lunch by Wesley Rose, who was at that time was running his fathers company Acuff Ross, one of the legendary music publishing companies in Nashville.
After lunch, Wesley asked if I would like to accompany him to a studio, he was going to a session where his friend, Kenny Rogers, was recording.
I declined, as visiting any studio whilst not working was a busman’s holiday for me.
He did kindly give me a VIP pass for the Country Hall of Fame.
Over the next few days I was to learn all about real Southern hospitality.
By now I was totally in love with Nashville, the whole town pulsated with music and energy.
Walter Hale was a completely mad, fabulous, eccentric character I met in Nashville, he and I would become great friends over the next few years.
I affectionately called him Nutty Walt, he would call me,
“Kinney Dinten my bestest buddy in the whole-wide-world.”
On my return trips to Nashville, Nutty Walt would pick me up at the airport in his open top Jeep, driving with a joint in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
It would always take hours to get wherever we were going, Nutty Walt would just stop the car in the middle of the street and have a conversation with someone on the sidewalk, he seemed to know everyone in town.
During one of my visits, Nutty Walt had moved to a new job and was enthusiastically insisting I meet his new employer Jerry Foster.
Jerry Foster
An acclaimed songwriter and has had over five hundred songs recorded during his career, mostly by very succesful artists.
Jerry Foster and Bill Rice are the most awarded songwriting team in the history of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, they hold the record for most awards received in a single year.
They also hold the distinction of having ten songs in the Billboard country music charts in one week.
Meeting Jerry
Arriving at Jerry’s office you couldn’t help but be impressed by the number of gold records and awards embellishing the walls.
My first impression was how successful this company was.
On closer inspection of these accolades, I was amazed to see they were all awarded to the same person, Jerry Foster. This was one successful guy.
After A few minutes I was asked to go up to Jerry’s office.
As I entered the room Jerry was sitting behind a huge desk. His shirt collar was turned up, as if to mimic the look of Elvis, featured in the large picture hanging on the wall directly behind him.
It was somewhat reminiscent of Lloyd Bridges in the 1980 movie Airplane, except Lloyd was standing in front of a picture of himself.
Walter introduced me to Jerry,
“This is Kinney Dinten my bestest buddy in the whole-wide-world.”
Jerry rose from his desk to shake my hand saying,
‘Hi buddy, Walter’s told me all about you.”
It soon became apparent Nutty Walt had enhanced my profile somewhat to Jerry.
It would seem I had been responsible for every hit record and major artist to come out of the UK and Europe for the last twenty years.
The Foster Mafia
Seated on the sofa to my right were four guys that I got to know as, The Foster Mafia; also, sitting on a chair to Jerry’s left, was a extremely overweight lady. She never spoke a word throughout the entire meeting.
After the initial introductions were over, Jerry sat down and placed one foot up on his desk, then with his guitar in hand proceeded to play and sing to me for the next three hours.
Every now and then the Foster Mafia would say,
“Go on Jerry, play him that song you wrote for…” followed by the name of a very succesful artist.
At one point Jerry put a cigarette in his mouth, two of the Foster gang, reaching for their lighters, leaped up competing to light it for him.
I had only ever seen this type of behavior in the movies and here it was happening for real.
Eventually, Jerry asked if I would like something to eat and I jumped at the opportunity, if only to give my ears and facial expression a rest.
It was in the Stars
The Foster Mafia scurried off immediately to order some takeaway food. Meanwhile Jerry disappeared into a side room with the silent oversized lady. This left just Walter and me alone in the office.
I asked Walter if this lady was Jerry’s wife,
“No Kinney, she is his clairvoyant, he is now asking her if you are seen in his future.”
Lucky for me, or maybe not, I was seen in Jerry’s stars as the chosen one.
A little while later the Foster Mafia returned with every type of food imaginable, there was Chinese, burgers, pizza, enough to feed an army.
When I asked, why there was such an amount and variety, one of the entourage replied.
“Wasn’t sure what you liked so we wanted to give you a choice.”
Wow! They certainly covered that base.
From then on I would be overwhelmed by Jerry’s attention and generosity.
At the end of the meeting I was given the loan of Jerry’s chauffeur and stretch limo; I was also asked if I would like to move from my hotel into his house.
Having seen someone take Jerry’s guitar to his car and thinking he probably had another few hundred songs I had not yet heard, I figured my hotel would be the best option.
We went on to have several meetings, and in each one of them Jerry would be seated behind his desk with his guitar, churning out song after song, telling me how and why he wrote it.
Occasionally he would take a break to play me some of his recordings.
A Smile Longer Than a Texas Mile
After a few of these meetings I started wondering why I was actually there.
I figured that crunch time had come,
“Jerry,” I asked,
“You have been very hospitable to me and I have enjoyed your company but I have to ask, is there something you want from me?”
“Well” he said,“
Now you come to mention it, I would like you to help me become a big star in Europe.”
My stomach sunk.
This guy was in his early forties and even with all his success in country music I couldn’t see him storming the British charts any time soon.
“Mmmm, with respect, the European market is really tough, plus you are a little old to break in as a new artist over there.”
Things Go Dark
Immediately the atmosphere in the room changed and took on an air of hostility and darkness.
If you have ever heard silence go quiet; you would know it’s a very loud sound.
At this point you could have heard a fly walking across the ceiling.
For a second I thought I had signed my death warrant, the silence, which seemed like an eternity was broken by Jerry leaning forward across his desk and with a smile bigger than a Texas mile, said in a quiet voice,
“Yeah, but Kenny, I can still cut it.”
The Foster Mafia went wild, and rose from their seats shouting and whooping,
“Yeah, Jerry can still cut it.”
I knew then I would live to see another day.
Jerry decided to put the guitar down and play me some of the recordings he had made. It had DJ Fontana on drums, Scotty Moore on guitar and backing vocals sung by the Jordanaires.
With the original Elvis band and Jerry doing his Elvis interpretation on the lead vocal, it was a really good 50’s Sun Studio type of recording.
One particular track stood out above all of the others, it was a song called Don’t Let Go.
At this time I had my own label in England called, A-Side Records, handled though Sonet Records UK.
I explained to Jerry that I believed we could have a chance with Don’t Let Go, but we would need to make the most of the fact that it was the Elvis backing band.
We should mention this on the label and sleeve notes.
I decided that, even if the track was rejected by the radio, I had a release that I would be very proud to represent.
Don’t Let Go
In November the same year I played the track to Rod Buckle the MD of Sonet Records UK, although A-Side was my own label, Sonet was responsible for promotion, distribution and placing product in Europe.
I explained to Rod that I believed I could achieve some reasonable sales due to the track’s novelty value.
No one in the UK had heard of Jerry Foster but DJ, Scotty and the Jordanaires did have a profile.
Rod agreed it was a good idea.
Once the finished record was pressed, several copies were presented to Radio One producers to listen to over the Christmas period.
It was on the first Monday of the New Year, I was listening to the Breakfast show on Radio One.
To my complete surprise I heard Don’t Let Go.
The DJ, Mike Read, was raving about this new record by Jerry Foster.
The same day, a couple of hours later, I was in the car listening to Radio One. Lo and behold it was played again on the Simon Bates show.
I stopped at the nearest telephone box to call Sonet.
I told them the news that we have a hit record on our hands and they must put 5000 copies of the single on the presses as soon as possible, ready to service the record shops.
The radio plays continued day after day.
Let Down
Unfortunately, there were no records available at any of the records shops for people to buy, apparently there was some disruption at the distribution depot.
I looked into the possibility of re-servicing the shops through another company.
Sadly due to the time this would have taken, it would have been impossible to retain the momentum started by all the radio plays.
Radio One continued to play the record for three weeks but without showing on the charts, it seemed that the producers and the DJs had misjudged their audience.
The record was dropped from the playlist.
In The New Musical Express weekly rock ‘n’ roll chart, Don’t Let Go stayed at number one for ten weeks.
Explaining this problem to Jerry wasn’t easy, but with his busy work schedule, along with being a true professional and his understanding of the music business, he took it all in his stride.
Jerry was and still is one of those talented, wonderful, unusual characters, which make the music industry so fascinating.
Once again the hand of fate dictates – There Ain’t No Rules In Rock n Roll.
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