Radney Foster's 2009 CD, Revival. Photo courtesy of Ellis Creative.
These twelve songs emerged when Radney plunged into the roiling waters of change–his father's death and the end of his 12-year, 5,000-mile separation from his son–and came up with renewed conviction.
"Losing my dad and having my son come home made me go through a period of reflection," offers Foster. "It's brought me in many ways closer to God, and it's filled me in many ways with more doubts than I ever had before. I couldn't help but pour all of that into these songs."
Most of the songs on the album are what Radney calls "close to the bone," so personal that he either wrote them on his own or with trusted friends, like Brown and Jay Clementi. "I Know You Can Hear Me," is a wrenching goodbye to Radney's father. "I Made Peace With God That Day" and "Until It's Gone"–both written with Brown–respectively capture the anguished fear of losing a child and vow to live with abandon (and crank up the volume) from here on out.
Radney has always had the ability to make the personal feel universal, and every song on this set brings the listener closer. There is a piercing honesty to songs like "Forgiveness" and "Life Is Hard (Love Is Easy)."He also found a way to bridge seduction–something he's sung about plenty and playfully over the years–and spiritual confession. The stylish, shuffling R&B of "Trouble Tonight" runs seamlessly into the choir-backed gospel boogie of "Shed a Little Light." Radney calls it a "Saturday night/Sunday morning combo," the sort of thing his wife used to put on the opposite sides of mixtapes back when they were dating.
With so much at stake in getting the spirit of these songs across, Radney relied on his longtime road band, now appropriately dubbed the Confessions. Thanks to them–and to Radney's own contributions on electric guitar–the album has a big guitar sound and a raw energy. The band adds a relentlessness to "Second Chances" which perfectly matches the lyrics, and a beautiful, stirring soundscape to "Suitcase."
Radney also enlisted the help of some friends. Dierks Bentley (who recorded Foster's "Sweet and Wild") came in to join the party on "Until It's Gone," and Darius Rucker lends his distinctive harmony on "Angel Flight," a moving tribute to the pilots who fly their fallen brethen home to their final resting places. Radney's co-writer, Darden Smith, started writing the song after talking to a pilot of the Texas Air National Guard who mentioned he flew the "angel flight." Smith asked Radney to finish the song with him, and the pair are donating proceeds from the song to a charity that provides assistance to military families beset by tragedy.
The set closes with a bluegrass reprise of the title track. Radney, Tammy Rogers and Jon Randall gathered around a microphone and in one take captured the spirit of Revival–joy and hope in the midst of uncertainty.
True to its title, Revival is the boldest and most spiritual thing Radney has done to date. But it would be a mistake to pigeonhole it strictly as a gospel release; what Radney is preaching here is the gospel of truth, and having the guts to choose love over fear. And like any good revival, this one will have you dancing, crying, laughing and ready to testify. Like he sings in the opening and closing track, Amen to love.
