Mo Foster born 22 December 1944

Michael Ralph "Mo" Foster (22 December 1944 – 3 July 2023) was an English multi-instrumentalist, record producer, composer, solo artist, author, and public speaker. 

Born in Woking, Surrey, to Ethel (nee Billings), a housewife, and her husband, Charles Foster, a senior manager at Goodyear Tyres, Mo was educated at Brewood grammar school in Staffordshire. Although not having any music in the home, he picked up the recorder at school when he was about nine years old and taught himself. He then went to Sussex University, where he studied physics before leaving early to follow his musical interests. 

Jet Harris

In 1959, Mo and a group of schoolfriends formed the Tradewinds, a band whose repertoire consisted of American guitar instrumentals, skiffle songs and excerpts from The Goon Show. At Sussex he played drums for the university’s jazz trio, who served as the support act to visiting musicians such as Cream, the Who and Jimi Hendrix. Soon after that, Foster had become a fan of the bass playing of Jet Harris of The Shadows, but had not seen the actual instrument until 1961, when Jet was revealed casually caressing the iconic headstock of a Fender Precision Bass on the cover of The Shadows LP. Foster wanted one, but had to settle for a Dallas Tuxedo Bass, the solitary bass guitar hanging in the window of the local music shop, the Band Box. 

US Jazz Trio. Mo on drums

In the early 1960s, there were no college music courses available for electric instruments, so Foster followed a scientific path, electing to study physics and mathematics at the University of Sussex. The university's pop band, The Baskervilles, and later the University of Sussex Jazz Trio (known as the US Jazz Trio), needed a drummer. So Foster set aside his bass, and for the next three years he played drums at university dances and balls. Mo moved to London and, after living in various locations, settled in Belsize Park. His first professional success came in 1968 when the jazz trio morphed into the progressive jazz/rock band Affinity with the singer Linda Hoyle, and attracted the attention of the jazz club impresario Ronnie Scott, who became their manager. An album was released in 1970, but did not sell well, leaving Mo to seek employment as a session bass guitarist. 

Affinity

After placing a classified ad in Melody Maker he was unexpectedly offered a job with the former Manfred Mann singer Mike d’Abo’s group, and on his first studio session he worked with Clem Cattini on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion, Mike Moran on keyboards and Ray Fenwick on guitar. He also established a close working relationship with the jazz/rock guitarist Ray Russell, with whom he played his final gig at Pizza Express, Soho, in 2023.

                             

During the mid 70’s Mo was part of the funk band Fancy with Ray Fenwick, Annie Kavanagh, and Les Binks who toured the entire U.S., resulting in some albums and a couple of singles which have recently been issued as a box set. Over the years he played on a number of hit singles including Don’t Cry for Me Argentina by Julie Covington (1976), I Could Be So Good for You by Dennis Waterman (1979) and No One is to Blame by Howard Jones (1986), as well as on many albums, including Beck’s There and Back (1980) and Collins’s Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982). Between 1982-85, Mo was one-third of the jazz-rock trio RMS with Ray Russell and Simon Phillips. 

As a session musician Foster played on over 400 commercially released recordings and soundtracks.. At the latter end of the 1980s Foster decided that he would like the freedom to perform, produce and record his own music rather than that of someone else. He was able to call on some of his many friends who happened to be some of the UK's foremost session musicians to help him. Since 1987 he has released eight studio and live albums. 

Mo with Phil Collins

Mo was also the author of Seventeen Watts?: The First 20 Years of British Rock Guitar (1997), which contained anecdotes from rock musicians about their escapades, with a foreword by Hank Marvin of the Shadows, and a follow-up, British Rock Guitar: The First 50 Years (2011). Foster worked as an archivist/interviewer on the UK Channel 4 series Live From Abbey Road, which involved interviewing musicians and bands who were performing live sets at EMI's world-famous Abbey Road Studios. In 2014 Mo was honoured with a Gold Badge award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in recognition of his contribution to music. 

In his later years he mainly recorded jazz albums, the most recent of which was Mo Foster & Friends in Concert (2021). His last sessions were in August 2022 for Music on the Bones, an album and US film project. The first two tracks from it were released after he died from liver and bile duct cancer on 3 July 2023, at the age of 78. He is survived by his wife, Kay (nee Morgan), a New Zealander whom he met at Stringfellows nightclub in 1986 and married the following year.

(Edited from the David Stark obit @ The Guardian, Wikipedia & Guitar World)