Jerry Foster was born on November 19, 1935, in Tallapoosa, Missouri, and grew up poor on his father’s farm, where his father put his first guitar in his hands. “I was raised on music and a lot of love,” he says. After high school he joined the U.S. Marines and formed a band there. Out of the service, he played on WSAV television in Savannah, Georgia, and later on KFVS in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
In 1966 Jerry moved to Nashville and went to work as a disc jockey at WENO radio. He soon teamed up with fellow songwriter Bill Rice, and the two began one of the most successful partnerships in country music. Charley Pride took their “The Day the World Stood Still” and “The Easy Part’s Over” up the charts in 1968. Jeannie C. Riley’s recording of “The Back Side of Dallas” earned a Grammy nomination in 1969, and in 1970 Mel Tillis reached the top 10 with “Heaven Everyday” while Pride went to No. 1 with “Wonder Could I Live There Anymore.” Jerry Lee Lewis went to No. 1 with “Would You Take Another Chance on Me” and later cut “Thirty-Nine and Holding.”
At the 1972 ASCAP Country Awards, Foster & Rice won ten awards in a single night and were photographed hauling the trophies away in a wheelbarrow. By 1974 they had eleven songs on the country chart at the same time, among them Mickey Gilley’s Grammy-nominated “Here Comes the Hurt Again” and Hank Williams Jr.’s top 10 “I’ll Think of Something,” which Mark Chesnutt took to No. 1 in 1992. Their songs were also recorded by Eddy Arnold, Jerry Reed, Tanya Tucker, Johnny Paycheck, Conway Twitty, Dave & Sugar and many more. In 1994 Foster & Rice were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Jerry never stopped being a performer. He cut records for Back Beat, Mercury, Cinnamon, Hitsville and Monument, charting with “Copperhead” and “I Knew You When,” and during the rockabilly revival of the early 1980s he released records in Britain and played Wembley. “I’m a rock’n’roller,” he says. “For me the music never got out of the fifties.” He has also worked as a publisher, producer and studio owner, and as an actor in films including Hannah Montana: The Movie and Management and in Carrie Underwood’s “Temporary Home” and “Two Black Cadillacs” videos.
In 2015 Jerry told his own story in the memoir An Ol’ Rebel Still Rockin’. He turned 90 in November 2025, celebrated by nearly 35 fellow musicians at Nashville’s Commodore Grille, and his life and music are the subject of Blue Collar Holler, an upcoming TV series produced by Myron Nash. After 60 years in the business, he still plays every Sunday night at The Commodore Grille.