Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 2, 1995                   TAG: 9509060001
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JIM PATTERSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN.                                LENGTH: Medium

RADNEY FOSTER JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET A BREAK

The title song made it to 50 on the Radio & Records country chart, and follow-up ``Willin' to Walk'' only scratched up to 46. And to make matters worse, he's in the midst of a divorce from wife Mary Springs Foster.

But, says Foster, ``I still think of myself as an optimist. I want to be the biggest thing since peanut butter and a slice of bread and sell a gadzillion records. ... I also realize the only thing I know how to do is write songs, put 'em on a record and hope it's a good one.''

``Labor of Love'' is a good one. Foster, 36, writes songs of considerable depth, especially compared to ``That Ain't My Truck'' and ``Darned If I Don't (Danged If I Do)'' - current hits for Rhett Atkins and Shenandoah. A third Foster single from the new LP, ``If It Were Me,'' has just been released.

After he left the duo Foster & Lloyd, his 1992 solo record featured two Top 10 singles, ``Nobody Wins'' and ``Just Call Me Lonesome.''

``Radney's music is a little off-center,'' said Johnny Gray, program director at WKHX-WYAY in Atlanta. ``It's such a fine line between an alternative country artist and traditional and he's on the alternative side, or at least he might be viewed that way.

``If you're unsure and one guy seems not to be working, why worry yourself with that? Let's go play Brooks & Dunn and Tracy Lawrence. Those guys are there.''

Foster has the benefit of being with Arista Records, home to such highly successful acts as Alan Jackson, Pam Tillis and The Tractors.

Charlie Cook, who advises about 23 country music stations on what they should play, says Foster's music is ``falling in the cracks'' between the superstar product and hot newcomers.

``If I had to pick an artist that deserves a chance but isn't getting it, he'd be in the top five,'' Cook said of Foster. Cook, vice president of programming at McVay Media in Hollywood, said that Foster had not released a ``just got to play'' single since ``Nobody Wins'' in 1993.

``The problem is the further you get away from hits, the harder it is,'' Cook said. ``The more new acts come between you and your last hit, the harder it is to get back there.''

Foster was born in Del Rio, Texas (his debut album was titled ``Del Rio, Tx-1959''). His father was a lawyer. He started paying guitar as a child, then began playing clubs while attending the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. He visited Nashville and was encouraged enough to drop out of school and move there.

He got a deal writing songs for MTM Music Group, where he started writing with Bill Lloyd. Together they wrote the top 10 hit ``Since I Found You'' for Sweethearts of the Rodeo.

Foster & Lloyd signed with RCA in 1987. Their first eponymous album is considered a near classic. They made two increasingly less successful albums, ``Faster & Louder'' and ``Version of the Truth,'' before breaking up in 1992.

Foster's sound, heavily influenced by the Bakersfield country of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and 1950s pop-rock, is radio-friendly enough. In fact, his protege George Ducas is doing very well in much the same vein.

Foster tends to focus on mature relationships rather than first love, and doesn't feel obligated to put out only love songs. ``Labor of Love'' features the narrative ``Jesse's Soul'' and ends with a personal confession.

That song is ``Making It Up As I Go Along.'' It sprung from another singer who Foster said ``sells a ... lot more records than I do'' who ``gushed and gushed and gushed and gushed'' about how much that singer liked Foster's music.

The song reveals an artist more interested in making connections than manufacturing mystique.

``I think there's guys that figure out how to build long-term careers as singer-songwriters for themselves - guys like Waylon Jennings, Guy Clark, John Prine, Rodney Crowell,'' Foster said. ``Certainly those guys figured out how to ride the crest of a lot of waves and figured out how to write good songs all along the way.''