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David Foster performs at Wynn Las Vegas this week.
Monday, Jan. 17, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Composer and producer David Foster has been performing his music live on tour for much of the last 15 years, and he’s famously collaborated with many of the most successful pop artists of recent generations — Whitney Houston, Michael Bublé, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey, Josh Groban, Olivia Newton-John, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Paul McCartney, Paul Anka, Stevie Nicks, Kenny Rogers … I could go on.
Despite his success and the fact that so many of his songs have been performed by stars like those in Las Vegas Strip residency shows, Foster never thought he could put together his own Vegas show, at least not until he “cut his teeth” performing here in Andre Agassi’s former Grand Slam for Children charity concerts.
“Thanks to Agassi, I figured it out,” Foster says. “The artists I’ve worked with go out on the road and enjoy performing what we created together and people get to see it in person, and I never got that. So it was a revelation to know I could do that without being a singer.”
Foster is a tremendous pianist, however, so the “Hitman Tour” he has developed features a great live band and a handful of powerful vocalists rolling through many of the greatest hits of his songwriting and producing career, accompanied by plenty of storytelling from the man himself. It lands at Wynn’s Encore Theater on January 21 at 8 p.m., and Foster is hoping it will go over well enough to return to the Strip with more dates soon.
“I love going there and I’ve seen so many shows there over the years, all the way back to Elvis back in the day,” he says. “I’m hoping what I do is a good fit, because what could be better than traveling once a month to Vegas for four shows, coming from L.A.? I would love it.”
It seems like his show will be a perfect fit, considering so many of the Strip’s headliners take time out between songs to share the stories behind the music. And as one of the more intimate big-name rooms on the Boulevard, Encore Theater is an ideal venue for that kind of close audience connection. It is, after all, the place where Garth Brooks did just that with his wildly successful series of shows from 2009 to 2014.
“I was a guest of Steve [Wynn] at opening night for Garth Brooks and he was incredible,” Foster says. “I probably subliminally picked up ideas from him, too, because he does a lot of storytelling about songs that affected him and influenced him. And the theater is amazing, just a great size.”
One of the more famous Foster music stories goes back to the time he produced Dion’s version of “All By Myself” in 1996. When the singer arrived to record, the producer had changed the key, forcing Dion to hit even higher high notes during the ballad’s climax. Foster pushed Dion by explaining if she couldn’t hit the notes, Whitney Houston was in the studio next door and she could come over and take care of it.
“Celine said that was all she needed to motivate her, and it was funny as hell,” Foster says. “I use that [story] in the show a lot because people are interested in her and that song. But I don’t tell any [Whitney Houston] stories, even though I did four songs on ‘The Bodyguard.’ I probably should. I spent a lot of time with her in the studio and she was fierce. She’d come in, rip off her jacket and just go.”
Foster says his approach to collaboration with such superstars has softened over the years.
“I think as I’ve gotten older, I’m probably not as much of a control freak or a hard-ass. I was young and cocky, and I won’t say I was a huge success early but I did have a hit record at 23, and by the time I was 30, things were running on all cylinders,” he says. “But I think I’d be a different person, probably nicer, today. Bublé and I started with his first album 20 years ago and we just worked together two or three years ago.
“What happens is artists get more confidence. In the beginning, it’s whatever you say, whatever you say, but then later — and rightfully so — they have more of a say in what they sing and how they sing it and how their career develops. By the time they’ve become stars, they have a lot more to say in the studio, and that’s how it should be.”
