Jeffrey Dean Foster - Rarities Collection

studio and live tracks

web streams (various sources)

Jeffrey Dean Foster: a name to know for quality rock, Americana, singer-songwriter

Jeffrey Dean Foster is a Winston-Salem, N.C. musician known for his work in The Right Profile, The Carneys and The Pinetops. Now, he's becoming known as a talented solo artist. His new album, The Arrow -- recorded with Mitch Easter and Don Dixon -- is coming in November (see below). This rarities collection is in two parts: Part 1 contains the unreleased EP by The Carneys, 1000 Nights and Counting (excellent roots rock, well-played) plus a similar-sounding solo track; Part 2 features a much more mellow live set by Jeffrey, in solo singer-songwriter mode, at a Chapel Hill club in 2012. The live set is an audience recording.

Sound quality: variable (VG- to VG+)

THANK YOU to The Carneys, JDF, Jesse Knight, and Will Safrit for sharing.

The Carneys: 9:30 Club show, 1980s

The Carneys

1,000 Nights and Counting

unreleased EP, rec. 1989

01 Gonna Be Tough

02 Arithmetic Baby

03 The Bells

04 Heaven Bound

05 Independence Clowns

06 Brand New Car

 

07 When You Break (unreleased JDF studio track)

Jeffrey Dean Foster Live

The Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC

Sept. 28, 2012

Recording the new album at Mitch's studio
Mary k. elkins photo

08 Out of the Blue

09 Jigsaw Man*

10 Summer of the Son of Sam

11 Milk and Honey

12 Witchita Lineman (cover)

13 Morningside*

14 Break Her Heart

15 So Lonesome I Could Fly

 

16 This Land Is Your Land

    (live, undated)

17 Widow's Peak

    (The Pinetops, live 1998)
 
*9 & 13 will appear on the new album

MP3@256

This solo album appeared in 2011

New album The Arrow 

 arrives in November. 

Music compadré Fred Mills has heard it, and says: 

"This is the kind of record that can literally stop you in your tracks it’s so good.... I guarantee it will be on my best-of 2014 list come December."
     

Sample it HERE and HERE
Buy it HERE or HERE
Read about it HERE & HERE

 

Learn more about the music of Jeffrey Dean Foster at his web site or FB page

Right Profile - 1980s Demos

The Right Profile

The guys who almost made it:

The Right Profile, with Clive Davis 
of Arista Records

Demos
(mid 1980s)

 
studio demos
(various dates & studios)

 
sound quality: VG to VG+

REPERCUSSION: Mitch Easter produced an early session for The Right Profile, which resulted in the group's only official release, the 3-song Let's Pretend single in 1983 (see below). Don Dixon produced subsequent demos for the band, including some of the tracks included in this collection.

CURIOUS? This band reminds me of The Long Ryders, but with more passion and a spirit of abandon that I like.

01 God's Little Acre

02 Cosmopolitan Lovesick Blues

03 Underneath the Window

04 Something New

05 Infatuation

06 Heart & Soul + coda

07 Take a Look at Me Now

08 Who's to Say?

09 Ride My Train

10 True Blue You

11 'Til the Sky Turns Black

MP3 Files (first 6 = 320 kbps; last 5 = 160 kbps)

The RIght Profile (photos by Nelson Penninger)

Here’s a good overview of the band by Michael Allen via YouTube:  

THE RIGHT PROFILE: (1981 - 1988) The Right Profile was formed in the early 1980s. A long cold winter at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, was the void from which this inexperienced and enthusiastic band was hurled. Playing everywhere from colleges to the chicken wired stages of the South, they found themselves popular by the mid-'80s. Jeffrey Dean Foster, Tim Fleming, and Stephen J. Dubner held it together through a parade of drummers including the rock solid Whitey Foster (brother of Mr. Foster). Jon P. Wurster from Pennsylvania, having written cryptic yet amusing fan letters to the band, seemed the natural choice for the bands permanent drummer. He was relieved from his job at the toothpaste factory and shipped down south.  

The Right Profile toured up and down the east coast opening shows for many mid-'80s rock heroes including The Del Fuegos, the Del Lords,and Jason & The Nashville Scorchers. After Clive Davis of Arista Records left his limo long enough to see the band at CBGB's in NYC, The Right Profile signed a record deal with Arista Records in the summer of 1986. Arista was at one time home to many of the bands favorites, including Patti Smith, Graham Parker, and The Kinks. But the many Barry Manilow gold records in the hallways should have been a foreshadowing of the train wreck ahead.

After moving to New Jersey and recording numerous demos with many producers they finally made it back down south to record with the legendary Jim Dickinson in the summer of 1987. Stephen J. Dubner left the band and guitar-wiz Eric Peterson accompanied the band to Ardent Studios in Memphis to record with Dickinson. After these sessions proved unsuccessful, it pretty much was all over but the crying. None of the many recordings of this era of The Right Profile have ever been released. Some earlier recordings done by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon have seen the light of day. The early 3 song EP Let’s Pretend was released on Vibratune Records in the fall of 1983. The Dixon-produced sessions piqued major label interest and the song “Cosmopolitan Lovesick Blues” was later released on the European compilation LP, Welcome to Comboland.  

FUN FACT: Stephen Dubner from this band is the same Stephen J. Dubner who co-authored the best-selling Freakonomics (and a host of related books, syndicated public radio segments, etc.)
  

Learn more about The Right Profile at  the NC Music History blog