73-year-old David Forster is a man of many hats. Forster was a musical prodigy who started on the University of Washington music program at 13. After completing his courses, he became a professional musician. He worked in the bands of Ronnie Hawkins (whose later backup band, The Hawks, famously became The Band) and Chuck Berry. In 1972 he formed Skylark, with which he moved to LA in 1974 after the band’s song Wildflower became a hit. He played on George Harrison’s Extra Texture in 1975.
After Harrison, Forster worked with an astonishing number of musicians. As time went on, he focused more on songwriting, movie scoring, and producing. By 1995 he was also a record company exec. In 1992, he produced David Foster’s Twilight Orchestra for Indonesian TV. In subsequent years he has been involved in many TV shows. Of interest to our first video, which comes from a 2023 David Foster & Friends concert in Manilla, is his appearance as a Judge on Asia’s Got Talent in 2015.
In the video, David Foster has just selected an audience volunteer to come up and sing. This, apparently, is a regular feature of David Forster & Friends concerts. Gwyn Dorado, the chosen one, approaches the stage and says she was on Asia’s Got Talent Season 1, on which Foster was a judge. At the time she was 10, now she is 18, so Forster doesn’t recognise her, even though she was a finalist. Forster assures the audience that it’s not a setup, and asks Dorado which song she wants to sing.
Unfortunately Forster and his band leader don’t know Alicia Keys’ If I ain’t Got You, so Dorado elects to sing it acapella. She is most impressive! CapizFlier comments, “That, ladies and gentlemen, is FILIPINO TALENT!” In the next video, YouTubers Waleska Herrera and Efra react to Dorado’s star turn. Their enthusiasm is infectious and fun, and they include snippets from 10-year-old Gwyn Dorado’s Asia Got Talent appearances, so the video kills several birds with one stone. Enjoy:
The popular David Foster and Friend’s concerts can be traced back to the December 2008 PBS special Hit Man: David Foster & Friends, which featured performances by Foster and various other performers including Kenny G, Barbra Streisand, Céline Dion, Michael Bublé, Blake Shelton, Boz Scaggs, Andrea Bocelli, Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds and Josh Groban, amongst others. This list gives some indication of the range of musicians that David Forster has worked with, either as a songwriter, or a musician, or a producer, or as a combination of these. Obviously David Forster & Friends shows don’t always have as many high profile guests as the TV special. For the 2023 Asia tour, his guests included Katherine McPhee, Daniel Emmet, Pia Toscano, Martin Nievera and Morissette.
Rolling Stone magazine famously named Foster the “master of … bombastic pop kitsch” in 1985. Foster has been nominated for 47 Grammy Awards, winning 16, three of which were for Producer of the Year. His song The Prayer (sung by Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion in the film Quest for Camelot, 1988) won the 1999 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. David Forster is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, amongst many other awards. If you would like to see more from David Foster, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel. You can also visit his official website for more information.