Nashville-based singer and songwriter Kenny Foster was born and raised in Joplin, Missouri and grew up singing in church, but he was also fully aware of the pop and country songs he heard all around him, and began playing guitar and writing his first songs in high school. He majored in philosophy at Missouri State University before transferring to Belmont University in Nashville, where he graduated with a degree in philosophy and American culture in 2004. Following college, Foster worked in and around the music scene, interning at Sony BMG, marketing for CMT and MTV, and he continued to write songs, finally tracking some of them and digitally releasing them on his website as the album For Now in 2008. He formed the group Philos with his friends Vince Romanelli and Michael Shoup, and the band self-produced an EP, recording it in basements and friend’s studios, finally releasing it in 2009. Foster began releasing newer solo material on his website early in 2011, calling the accumulation of songs a WP (work in progress). A horrible storm ravaged his hometown of Joplin in the spring of that year, and Foster wrote the moving “Hometown,” releasing it as a single that same spring, with proceeds going to a relief fund to help rebuild the community. ~ Steve Leggett