Radney Foster with an open Mike

With a last-minute change of plans and short-notice Facebook event invite, Coco and I were able to take in one of the finest shows we have ever seen. Or rather, heard. Misisipi Mike and Radney Foster in back-to-back acoustic sets at the Café du Nord. Now we've been following Mike through his various musical incarnations for many years now, but I have been a Radney Foster fan since Foster & Lloyd.

I always felt a connection with Radney Foster too even though I think we only met briefly, and only once or twice, more than 20 years ago. Radney was a Phi Gam at Sewannee, me at Davidson. Radney's wife (at the time) was the French teacher to my friends at the girls' high school (sort of sister school to the boys' school I attended down the street) and I would meet them after college through my friendship and volunteer work with a woman who taught French at both schools. And Radney and I used to get our hair cut in adjacent chairs at Dottie's in her hole-in-the-wall "salon" in old Hillsboro Village. And Radney was the babysitter to friends, particularly my life-long friend and first love Jessica.

Radney recorded heartfelt and more authentic revisions of tracks from his popular country hit album Del Rio, TX (released in 1992) on the beautiful album Are You ready for the Big Show? in 2001. He has had moderate album success since his four-consecutive hit singles on Del Rio, but continues to be a hit-making successful songwriter and object of acoustic adoration from more than one generation of fans. Radney has revised that original album in a new acoustic version Unplugged & Awesome.

Local country/bluegrass Man Who Makes the Shows Happen Shelby Ash put Misisipi Mike and Radney Foster on the Du Nord stage last night for an evening of acoustic song-crafting bliss.


We had too short a visit with Mike and only the briefest of details on all the changes and stories he had to tell, but I was happy to introduce Coco to Shelby and they are both so adorable at the bar.


And after so much of my youth just once-removed, I had a great time having an actual conversation with Radney and swapping mutual friend stories. Very Nashville. SUCH a charming guy. And his voice hasn't changed and is as emotive and evocative as ever.


I have two short crappy video clips from my camera, each under a minute and full of ambient noise and sing-a-longers; but for what they're worth, here's a gesture of the night:




It was truthfully a ridiculously awesome show. God I love songwriters.