Music Instruction | Recording Studio | Instrument Repair
Web Design/Hosting | The Early Years | Guitar for Weddings
Deep in the heart of the famous artist colony of Brown County, Indiana, Jeff Foster lives with wife Rhonda on a semi-rustic homestead they continue to create on the peak of a rather precipitous hill overlooking a small, spring-fed lake, located about five minutes outside of the picturesque tourist town of Nashville. From this deeply wooded retreat, he pursues his musical, earthly and spiritual studies, posting his most apposite observations here in StringDancer and elsewhere, venturing out into the world only when necessary. Inspired by his favorite American author, Henry David Thoreau, Jeff is currently working on writing “a simple and sincere account of his own life”.
🎼_ TEACHING – A lifelong music instructor at two major universities and a prominent community college, Jeff continues to teach guitar, banjo and bass privately in Nashville, IN, as well as online via Zoom, Facetime and Skype.
🎤_ LIVE PERFORMANCE – Jeff has a long history of live performances beginning in the late 1960s and spanning five decades. As a solo artist or band member, Jeff has opened concerts for and/or performed with such luminaries as Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, John McLaughlin & the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Mason Williams, Pat Benatar, Tracy Chapman, John Prine, Taj Mahal, Steve Goodman, Jorma Kaukonen, Rick Danko, The Ides of March, and many gifted, lesser known musicians.
After moving to Brown County Indiana in 2012, Jeff performed in several well-known local bands, notably Foster Jones with singer-songwriter Frank Jones; Dry Red with vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter Amanda Webb; and Celtica, the self-described “progressive Celtic” band with Tammera Lane, Tim Dooley, Carolyn Dutton, Clancy Clements and Tom Lozano.
Wine-down Wednesday deserves special mention. WDW was a highly successful weekly engagement for Jeff, spanning seven years (2013-2020) at Brown County’s Hobnob Corner Restaurant. Jeff entertained thousands of patrons over the years with his eclectic repertoire of solo guitar music, making many good friends along the way.
Probably a fourth of the crowd on any given Wednesday were regulars who made WDW a part of their lives every single week — such was the popularity of the Hobnob’s fantastic cuisine and down-home Brown County ambiance combined with the sounds of Jeff’s solo nylon-string guitar. His last WDW performance at the Hobnob was March 11, 2020, yet another casualty of Covid hysteria.
Beginning in late 2021, Jeff did perform sporadically on a limited basis (including a two-week stint as the pit guitarist in the ironically-named play, “COVID: The Musical“, at the Brown County Playhouse), but afterwards pretty much retired from live performance. He remains alert for a renewed calling from God to pick up the guitar again. So we’ll see.
📀 _ Discography – Stream a selection of Jeff’s recorded works. Featuring works produced by Jeff as well as others, this collection dates from 1978 to the present, all in MP3 format.
🎧 _ STUDIO PRODUCTION – Having recorded and produced his own recordings for many decades, Jeff is also in the audio/video production business with his home-based StringDancer Studios, specializing in demo and CD projects for singer-songwriters, and individualized video presentations.
🛠 _ STRINGED INSTRUMENT REPAIR – Jeff also repairs stringed instruments when he gets the chance. He’s been doing repairs since the late 1970s, and enjoys the solitary pleasure of healing ailing guitars, banjos, basses, mandolins and fiddles, making their owners happy again.
🖥 _ WEB DESIGN & HOSTING – Jeff’s web design and hosting business, StringDancer.net, first began under the name of FostersWeb shortly after Jeff went online in the mid-1990s. Jeff began learning the ropes of web design and server administration during his four years as an AOL Assistant Forum Leader (which ended immediately prior to a certain national class-action lawsuit against AOL in 2000, of which he was one of three lead plaintiffs for the State of California). Today he continues to work as a freelance webmaster, designing and/or hosting websites for individuals, organizations and small businesses.
📖 _ BIOGRAPHY – And for an excruciatingly exhaustive recap of Foster’s pre-Brown County life, check out The Early Years.
