- [Jerry Foster] Was just Bill and me.

We didn't write with anybody else.

This, this is the team and this is what we do.

We became the most awarded songwriting team in the history of ASCAP.

So I think we got 68 of those suckers.

I gotta whole wall.

- [Host] Jerry Foster, Hall of Fame Songwriter.

- [Jerry] Thank you.

(crowd cheers) (upbeat country music) - I could rhyme in meter before I ever started grade school.

And I started grade school I was five.

I thought everybody could do it.

So I always give credit to God for that because I think that my writing ability's a God given gift 'cause I didn't learn to do it.

- [Narrator] Jerry Foster's musical talent was his ticket out of poverty in rural Missouri and his key to success as one of our greatest songwriters.

Foster and Rice pinned dozens of hits for some of the biggest names in country music during the 60s and 70s.

- Basically what we did was I wrote to the melody, and I wouldn't let Bill do lyric.

I, I'ds a hum it or "da da" it.

♪ Da da da da da da da da ♪ Became ♪ I could search from now to the end of- ♪ Now sing that to me.

He'd sing it and the next line would pop in my head.

And then we, by the time we started got that first verse outta away, I mean we started rocking on through it because it's kind of fell in place.

Normally, a song Bill Rice and I wrote would take about 45 minutes.

I think the longest we ever wrote on one song was a little over two hours and that was a song that went number one for Jerry Lee Lewis.

(upbeat country music) But if we got together and nothing was happening in an hour, I'd say, "Bill, I think, I, I think I hear a golf tee calling me."

and he said, "Yeah I think the fish are biting."

You know, and that was it.

We didn't worry about it.

Sometimes a lot of young songwriters will come up to me and say, "Do you have any advice?"

And I will tell you this, if you have talent, don't quit.

No is just a word and it's not the final word.

♪ I'm walking through the past ♪ ♪ With songs I love to sing ♪ ♪ I'm just ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ ♪ Out to do my thing ♪ - [Announcer] This Npt Arts Break is made possible by the generous support of the Martha Rivers Ingram Advised Fund of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.