The greatest compliment a recording executive can receive is being described as having great ears. But David Foster has been described as not only possessing great ears, but great eyes. That is, his innate ability to recognize the potential of the music and to create within it a visual identity that will express the essence of the sound. .
Foster, a fourteen-time Grammy Award winner (including the coveted Producer of the Year award no less than three times) with an unprecedented 41 nominations to his credit, erupted onto the music scene when his rock group, Skylark, scored the Top 10 hit "Wildflower" in 1973. Quickly establishing himself as one of the industry's premier keyboardists, Foster went on to become one of the most sought-after session musicians, performing alongside such musical titans as John Lennon, Diana Ross, George Harrison, Rod Stewart and Barbra Streisand. .
Restless with the lifestyle of a session musician and eager to expand further on his own songwriting and producing, Foster turned to outside projects, writing and producing hits for the likes of Hall & Oats, Boz Scaggs and the Average White Band, among many others. By 1979, Foster had won his first Grammy Award for co-writing the #1 song "After the Love Has Gone" recorded by Earth Wind & Fire. .
This success was quickly followed by another Grammy in 1980 for producing the cast album of the Tony Award-winning hit Broadway musical, Dream Girls. And it wasn't long before Hollywood recognized the young producer's talents, which led to a number of film and television projects, including Boz Scaggs' "Look What You've Done To Me" (Urban Cowboy), as well as several #1 singles including Chicago's "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" (Summer Lovers) and "The Glory of Love" (Karate Kid Part II), and John Par's "Man in Motion" (St. Elmo's Fire). He also produced platinum-plus selling soundtracks to such box-office toppers as Ghostbusters and Footloose.