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Artist
Stephen Foster & Howler
11+ albums
bluesrockblues
about
Stephen Foster & Howler came into being when I decided that my solo career was stagnating, becoming two-dimensional, and just plain boring. Long-time friend & drummer Eddie Russell was the first convert, and we looked for a while, 9 months in fact, for other members. We did some auditions and talked to musicians all across the country, but none of them seemed right for the situation. We needed players who could carry a musical load. We wanted a small, tight rhythm section that could perform any of the wide variety of songs that I was writing as well as a large catalog of existing songs in my publishing company. That turned out to be harder than we expected. One night, driving back from a gig in Nowheresville, AL, I said "Eddie, you know who would be the perfect bass player for this group? Larry Hartsfield! I wonder what he's doing these days?" Larry was my bass player in "WhiteHorse", a rock group I fronted in the 70s. We had kept in sporadic touch over the years, but I hadn't heard from him in 10 years. That led to a phone call and an ecstatic YES from Larry. That left us one person short. I play keys and guitars, but always like to have a dedicated homicidal guitarist in the band, so we started looking. After 2 months, Larry literally smacked his head and said "Lord, why didn't I think of Dr. J.?" Jay Jernigan is who he was talking about, a guitarist/singer Larry had worked with over the years. I didn't know Jay, having traveled in different circles, but Jay had spent 3
