Kenny Foster is an artist in the truest sense of the word. A musician who is interested in the human condition. A thinker, a talker but also a man of action. He released the superb ‘Deep Cuts’ album back in 2017 which featured tracks like ‘Made’ and ‘Stand’, songs to analyse and inspire: which is what great songwriting is designed to do. As the opening line from new song, ‘For What It’s Worth’, says, he’s a ‘long form man in a sound bite world.’
New album, ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ takes everything that we’ve come to love about Foster’s writing – his authenticity, his light touch and his emotional heft and wraps it all up in a package that just stops short of being a concept album although it is certainly an album with a strong concept. That concept is an investigation into what makes us human and how we’ve become the people we are today. It is also a tribute to the folks we’ve met along the way that have shaped and built our lives. On ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ Foster spends a large amount of time looking back into his childhood and reflecting on how the people and places around him shaped who he is today. Nostalgia is a common and over-used trope in Country music but ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ is meaningful rather than being mawkish, sentimental rather than being overtly saccharine.
The first half of the album is driven by a number of songs about Foster’s mid-west upbringing. He was at pains to tell me in a recent interview that growing up in the mid-west was very similar to life in the more traditionally Country areas of the south – farmers, rural lifestyles and small town experiences were the same as the ones often quoted in the myriad of songs there have been written in the last decade by Nashville artists but it also came with a unique perspective that is very different too and ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ tries to reflect that. The title track is an intense, atmospheric look at mid-west, small town life with its prom kings, Dairy Queens, video stores and tanning booths. A military-esque drum beat and a simple repeating keyboard drives the song towards its anthemic climax and the oft-used trope of small town America is deftly handled with style and nuance. Similarly, on ‘Poor Kids’, which has a similar vibe to the title track, the clichè that you hear time and again from Nashville, that ‘we grew up poor but look at me now’ is handled with grace and wisdom as Foster looks back on a childhood growing up in hand-me-down Goodwill clothes. There’s no glorification here, no attempt to portray a Cinderella style rags to riches story, ‘Poor Kids’ is a simple look at a childhood that helped to make Foster the man he is today, warts and all.
Tracks like ‘Farmer’ and ‘Driveway’ go a long way to convey those feelings of gratitude that Foster has when looking back on his upbringing, his family and his heritage. The former is another quiet, intense song about Foster’s upbringing amongst a family of mid-west farmers. He examines the unpredictable nature of a lifestyle where you have to ‘plant your seeds and wait, knowing God will have his way’. This isn’t a song about John Deere trucks it’s a clever song during which Foster comes to realise that the life of a musician is very similar to that of a farmer, a life of planting seeds and hoping that fate allows some of them to take. ‘I guess I’m a farmer after all,’ he sings with both meaning and conviction. ‘Driveway’, meanwhile, is an uplifting track propelled by big, anthemic drums and electric guitar that puts forward the idea that every trip down memory lane starts on the driveway of your childhood home. It’s a delightful examination of how memories are made and another thankful slice of mid-west Americana from this very talented writer.
Perhaps the two most impactful songs on the album come at the past from two very different sides of the coin. On ‘Good for Growing Up’, Foster examines what happens when the time comes for parents to sell the family home. The song becomes a list left behind for the son of the next family, a cheat-sheet, if you will, of things about the house and the surrounding neighbourhood. ‘Those were the best years of my life, kid, I hope you love it like I did,’ Foster sings on this atmospheric track that will hit you in all the right places inside and invoke memories of your own childhood in a relatable and meaningful way. ‘Copy, Paste, Repeat’, meanwhile, is a glorious 3 minute gut-punch of a song that is all picked guitars and intense yet fragile vocals. It is built around the image of a town’s welcome sign standing guard on the county line preventing people from leaving and it goes on to explore how people and communities in small towns make repeated generational mistakes that prevent sons, grandsons, daughters and granddaughters from ever escaping. It’s a heartbreaking, raw and honest look at mid-west life that is relatable to people from small towns the world over. ‘Don’t swim up stream,’ he sings, ‘or chase the big dreams, just copy, paste, repeat.’ Easily one of the best songs Foster has ever written, there’s so much to unpack within its dense lyrics and only repeated listens will allow the song to breathe to its fullest extent.
Alongside the exploration of small town life you’ll find love, joy and reflection on ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ too. ‘Dreams Change’ is a thoughtful, anthemic song about thinking you were on one path, only to find yourself on another, thanks to the people that you meet and fall in love with along the way. A similar sentiment is echoed on ‘The One’, which is a clever song that explores what it was like being ‘the one before the one.’ The song starts in a sad place, full of yearning and regret but by its conclusion Foster comes to realise it was her that was the ‘one before the one’ and not him after all! Relatable stuff dripping in emotion and wisdom.
‘For What It’s Worth’ finds Foster a man out of time, seemingly at odds with modern life. He comes to see this as a strength and equates that strength to his upbringing and his faith as the song rattles along and evolves into a very Tom Petty-sounding romp in it’s final third as the guitars wail away. ‘Country Heart’ is a simple yet effective love song with a cracking melody on the chorus and ‘Find the Others’ has a kind of Gaelic, Irish drinking song cadence to it as Foster issues a clarion call for stability and unity. ‘We’ll make our own friends, every shape, creed and colour’ he sings on a song not remotely political at all but more meaningful than any politician in this modern era could hope to be.
The album is rounded off by two songs full of wisdom and grace. ‘Said to Somebody’ is a poetic examination of the things that we often wish we had said to people but we don’t. It has clever lyrics and a wistful melody that will be perfect for intimate shows and songwriter rounds. Album closer, ‘The Same’, meanwhile, is a touching, meaningful song about fathers, sons, strength, resilience and duty. There’s an uplifting chorus about chasing your dreams but being grounded enough to know where those opportunities came from. It’s another relatable track about families and foundations and as it closes you’ll hear the melody from album opener and title track ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ playing as this ‘not a concept album, but an album with a strong concept’ comes back around again, full circle, to where it started, much like life itself does if you’ve lived it for long enough!
‘Somewhere in Middle America’ is a tremendous album. It’s a journey back in time, an exploration of self and what it means to be a good human shaping other good humans too. There’s a depth to these songs that fans of Foster’s previous album, ‘Deep Cuts’ will get right away but for newcomers, welcome to one of Country music’s most secret clubs! Labelling Foster as a Country artist doesn’t do justice to what he’s trying to do. He’s a songwriter in the best traditions of what being a songwriter is about. He doesn’t chase a meaningless rhyme or a lazy melody, instead, he writes from the heart as he explores the soul. There’s faith here, but its non-denominational, there’s politics but it doesn’t belong to one side or the other and there’s nostalgia but it’s meaningful and deftly handled: a cipher for understating the person he is today rather than being a cliched series of traditional tropes trotted out for the sake of a sub 3 minute song. The ambition of any truly aspirational writer is to find that place where meaning and melody collide without sacrifice or compromise: it happens all over ‘Somewhere in Middle America’, on every song, in many different forms and guises. Deep cuts, indeed!!!
Tracklist: Somewhere in Middle America 2. Poor Kids 3. Copy Paste Repeat 4. Driveway 5. Farmer 6. Dreams Change 7. For What It’s Worth 8. The One 9. Country Heart 10. Good for Growing Up 11. Said to Somebody 12. Find the Others 13. The Same Record Label: Self Produced Release Date: October 21st Buy ‘Somewhere in Middle America’ now
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