“Not all songs have a story,” David Foster says. “But these five do.”
He would know: In a profession that stretches throughout greater than half a century — and which took him from his native Canada to his longtime house of Los Angeles — Foster has written, produced, organized, performed on, executive-ized or reality-TV-coached the efficiency of an limitless array of songs, amongst them a few of the largest (and most shamelessly sentimental) in pop historical past.
Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me”? “The Prayer” by Dion and Andrea Bocelli? “Glory of Love” from “The Karate Kid Part II”? All Foster joints, which doesn’t even get to the work he’s achieved with — deep breath right here — Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Chaka Khan, Madonna, Michael Bublé, Kenny Rogers, Josh Groban, Lionel Richie and Mary J. Blige.
On Sunday night time on the Hollywood Bowl, Foster will look again at this lifetime of songs in an all-star live performance to mark his seventy fifth birthday. The lineup contains Bocelli, Bublé, Groban, Jennifer Hudson, Charlie Puth, Kristin Chenoweth, Brian McKnight, El Debarge and, not least, Foster’s spouse, singer and actor Katharine McPhee.
Forward of the present, Foster obtained on the telephone between tour dates to inform the tales behind 5 of his signature tunes.
Earth, Wind & Hearth, ‘After the Love Has Gone’ (1979)
Co-written by Foster, Jay Graydon and Invoice Champlin — and sung with silky finesse by Earth, Wind & Hearth mastermind Maurice White — this difficult ballad from the band’s double-platinum “I Am” album earned Foster the primary of his 16 Grammy Awards. Foster later launched a model by his and Graydon’s short-lived soft-rock band, Airplay.
I used to be pitching an album to [Motown founder] Berry Gordy, one in all my very first productions, and he was lukewarm on it. I mentioned, “But wait — I have more!” However I didn’t have extra. He mentioned, “Show me.” So I went to the piano and sat down, and I swear to God, the refrain of “After the Love Has Gone” fell out in actual time.
You didn’t have something once you sat down on the piano.I had nothing. Completely bulls—ed him.
Tommy Mottola wrote in his memoir that you simply provided the tune to Corridor & Oates earlier than Earth, Wind & Hearth.I did provide it to Corridor & Oates as a result of I used to be producing them on the time. However the tune didn’t match with their program — they had been attempting to go extra rock. Then I performed it for Maurice White, and I used to be much more nervous than with Berry Gordy. Maurice, I feel, was the best. He mentioned, “I’d like to record that song,” which made my coronary heart pound. I mentioned, “When?” He mentioned, “Tonight — and you’re gonna play on it.”
“After the Love Has Gone” peaked at No. 2 on the Scorching 100. Keep in mind what blocked it from No. 1?I positive do: “My Sca-rotum.”
I questioned whether or not shedding to “My Sharona” was notably vexing.On reflection, I really like that report too. And I grew to become mates with the drummer [of the Knack]. However yeah, it was a little bit bit annoying that it was [sings “My Sharona” riff] and we had seemingly a lot substance to our tune. However, you already know, the general public doesn’t care about that.
What do you assume now of the Airplay model of “After the Love Has Gone”?It’s a little bit slick.
Is perhaps a little bit sluggish too.One of many causes it feels sluggish is as a result of after we recorded it with Earth, Wind & Hearth, we didn’t have a click on monitor. I mentioned, “Maurice, we gotta do it again — we’re playing twice as fast at the end as we are at the beginning.” Hearken to it — you’ll hear it. He mentioned, “I don’t care — feels good to me.”
He was proper.He was all the time proper.
Chicago, ‘Hard to Say I’m Sorry’ (1982) 
Chicago had lengthy since made its title as a swinging jazz-rock outfit when Foster got here onboard for a inventive and industrial reboot led by him and the band’s singer, Peter Cetera.
We had completed “Chicago 16,” and Irving Azoff obtained ahold of us and mentioned, “We have this movie called ‘Summer Lovers,’ and we’d like you guys to write a song for it.’” So Peter came visiting to my home in Toluca Lake and we banged that sucker out in about an hour. It all the time helps when you will have a film as a co-writer.
You’re saying you had a theme or an emotion to go off.We had a scene, really. Within the film, the tune begins — Peter’s going, “Everybody needs…” — and there’s this moped within the distance that Peter Gallagher’s using, and that f—ing moped will get louder and louder, to the purpose the place it’s obliterating our tune.
What do you want about Cetera’s voice?He’s like a horn part — he would sing so exhausting and so lovely and so excessive. How may you not be impressed listening to any person doing hum-alongs with you on the piano with that voice? He’d make up faux s—, simply syllables and vowels, like songwriters do. But it surely all sounded good to me.
Do you see a parallel between Chicago and the Doobie Brothers or Fleetwood Mac — one in all these bands the place there’s like a regime change sooner or later that fairly considerably alters the band’s sound?I’ve by no means considered that, and it didn’t really feel that means on the time. However the group was actually sad again then and to some extent are actually. And I get it — I get why they had been sad. I simply got here in like a younger, boastful barnstormer: “OK, I’m playing all the piano now.” And Peter let me play the synth-bass on all the things as a result of he didn’t need to play bass anymore.
So I used to be the bass participant, I used to be the piano participant, I used to be the co-songwriter, I used to be the producer, I used to be the arranger for essentially the most half. I didn’t know then that I used to be making them be extra like me than I used to be attempting to be like them. I used to be attempting to mimic them, however I suppose extra of me got here out than ought to have. They usually obtained aggravated as a result of they didn’t need to be a ballad band.
Seems like a regime change.I imply, my mission with Chicago was I wished to remind them of their greatness. I used to be such a fan within the late ’60s when it was the Transit Authority. However by “Chicago 16” they’d simply forgotten their greatness, that’s all. Backside line is: I don’t blame them for being pissed off.
“Hard to Say I’m Sorry” went to No. 1. Did that success make them much less salty?No, as a result of they’d had a ton of success earlier than. They had been so revered — they had been critic’s darlings, for essentially the most half. I f—ed that up.
David Foster, ‘Love Theme From “St. Elmo’s Hearth” ’ (1985) 
Foster’s theme from the Brat Pack basic was the uncommon instrumental monitor to crash the pop High 20 within the Nineteen Eighties.
I don’t take a look at a sundown or the ocean and go, “Oh, I can write a song around that.” That’s simply not who I’m. One of many solely occasions I’ve ever been impressed to write down a melody was going throughout the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver — a melody got here to me for the love theme of “St. Elmo’s Fire.” I sang it right into a tape recorder that I had within the automotive, and I did a demo and despatched it to the director, Joel Schumacher, who I liked working with. He mentioned, “No, no, no, no, no, no — this is totally wrong for my movie.” Clearly, I used to be crushed and disenchanted.
Couple days later, Quincy Jones referred to as me and he mentioned, “We’re doing this thing down here called ‘We Are the World.’ You should do the same thing in Canada.” So I considered it, and I referred to as Bruce Allen, the supervisor, and Bruce ultimately mentioned sure and we obtained all of the artists collectively for a Canadian model of “We Are the World,” which was referred to as “Tears Are Not Enough.” And the tune that we used — Bryan Adams completed it together with his associate, Jim Vallance — it was the tune that Joel rejected.
The humorous factor is that after Bryan did this wonderful demo, Joel calls and he goes, “Oh my God, David, I’ve made such a big mistake — I put your melody up against the movie, and it’s perfect.” I mentioned, politely, “You snooze, you lose.” Then I panicked and ran to the piano and got here up with what grew to become “Love Theme from ‘St. Elmo’s Fire.’ ”
Natalie Cole with Nat ‘King’ Cole, ‘Unforgettable’ (1991) 
For the title monitor of her 1991 requirements assortment, Natalie Cole chosen the swank romantic ditty popularized 4 many years earlier by her father — then minimize it as a digital duet with Nat “King” Cole, who’d died in 1965. The only and the LP went on to win album, report and tune of the yr on the Grammys.
I used to be type of at a low level in my profession after the monster ’80s. So when that challenge got here alongside, I believed, effectively, I really like this type of music, and I really like Natalie. It received’t promote something, however at the very least it’ll be a extremely gratifying musical expertise.
She gathered three producers — me, Tommy LiPuma and her husband on the time, Andre Fischer — and all of us met at Du-par’s within the Valley. Natalie put 22 tune titles out on the desk and advised us to choose the songs we liked. I picked “Mona Lisa” as my first decide, after which second or third spherical, I took “Unforgettable.”
Later, Natalie advised me, “You picked the song that I want to try and do as a duet with my father. Do you have any idea how you could make that work?” I mentioned, “No, but I’ll figure it out.” And I figured it out: I had Natalie sing, and I had them sing collectively, and I had Natalie reply her dad. The true exhausting factor to do was to get him to reply her again. So she goes, “Unforgettable,” and he goes, “Unforgettable,” proper behind her. It was like he was over her shoulder.
Now, that might be really easy to do: Transfer his vocal right here, transfer his vocal there — push of a button. Again then, you’ll be able to think about the expertise. It was brutal.
The Grammys sweep impressed some backlash from of us who objected to the celebration of this old style music within the yr of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Ice Dice’s “Death Certificate.” What’d you make of that?No person mentioned that to my face. Clearly, some had been saying it behind my again. I’m positive Nirvana was pissed off, however I’ve been pissed off on the Grammys too.
Whitney Houston, ‘I Will Always Love You’ (1992) 
Foster took his second report of the yr Grammy in three years with Houston’s iconic rendition of Dolly Parton’s tender nation ballad. The tune drove gross sales of the soundtrack of “The Bodyguard” to greater than 18 million copies in america alone.
Did Whitney know Dolly’s tune earlier than she remade it?She didn’t. I didn’t realize it both.
The story goes that utilizing the tune was Kevin Costner’s concept.I’m undecided — that’s the best way it got here to me, though I’ve heard it was his assistant that first talked about the tune. Initially they wished to make use of “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” I did two demos of it for Whitney, drove down each occasions to downtown L.A. the place she was filming. I favored the tune however I didn’t really feel there was sufficient meat on the bone for any person like Whitney Houston to sing. So I wasn’t assured, which in all probability tainted her response — she didn’t like both one.
Then, lo and behold, the tune appeared on the Scorching 100 [in a cover by the English singer Paul Young]. I needed to feign like I used to be upset: “Kevin, you’re never gonna guess what happened…” He goes, “OK, lemme think about that,” and subsequent factor I do know, he delivers the title “I Will Always Love You” to me.
In these days, you needed to go to the report retailer to listen to one thing. I despatched the assistant down there, and she or he got here again not with Dolly’s model however with Linda Ronstadt’s model. And Linda solely did two verses, not three, in order that’s what I believed the tune was. I didn’t know there was a 3rd verse.
We recorded it in Florida, and since I used to be mates with Dolly — I’d performed on a whole lot of her information — I referred to as her and advised her Whitney was doing her tune. She mentioned, “Great, I can’t wait to hear her sing that third verse.” I used to be like, “There’s no third verse.” She mentioned, “What are you talking about? It wraps the whole song up: ‘I wish you joy and happiness.’” So we went again within the studio, and I feel that’s once I conjured up the drum second.
Was the drum second all the time tied to a key change?Oh yeah. Once I make information, what I’ve all the time tried to do is give a report that second the place I think about the viewers leaping to their ft in the course of the tune.
Why a sax solo?Why not? I had two huge No. 1 hits round that point with sax solos — the opposite was “I Swear” [by All-4-One]. Adam Levine and I had been speaking about saxes not too long ago as a result of he was enjoying me one thing that had sax on it. I mentioned, “Hey, buddy, welcome to the club.”
“I Will Always Love You” spent 14 weeks at No. 1, the longest stretch of all time till —Mariah.
She and Boyz II Males went 16 weeks with “One Sweet Day.”That was a little bit bit deflating. We thought we’d maintain the report eternally.
A couple of years in the past, Babyface advised me, “There’s no other record where somebody put on a better performance than ‘I Will Always Love You.’ That’s game over.” Is he proper?Not for me to say. But it surely’s definitely up there. I bear in mind when Whitney was doing the a cappella half on the entrance, I used to be standing there and her mom was standing beside me. She whispered, “You’re witnessing greatness right now.” And he or she was proper.
I wished to chop the a cappella half. It was Kevin’s concept. I advised him, “For your movie, OK, we’ll do it. But when I finish the record, this is getting axed.” I imply, I didn’t say it fairly that boldly. However after all, as soon as she sang, “If I…,” I used to be like, Oh my God, how may this report ever begin one other means than that?