1987–1990
Foster and Lloyd
Nine Billboard country singles, with “Crazy Over You” identified in the source biography as the first debut single by a country duo to reach #1 on the Radio & Records chart.
Biography
Bill Lloyd
Songwriter, musician, recording artist, producer, collaborator, and curator of a wide-ranging Nashville music career.
In his own archive
Biography
Bill Lloyd is a Nashville-based Grammy-nominated songwriter, musician, recording artist and producer, often remembered as half of the late ’80’s RCA country-rock duo, Foster and Lloyd. Between 1987 and 1990, the duo charted nine singles on the Billboard country charts with their debut single, “Crazy Over You” being the first debut single by a country duo to reach #1 on the Radio & Records chart.
Lloyd’s diverse musical activities include working as a producer (ranging from Carl Perkins to MTV reality show indie-rockers, The Secret), a session player (backing Brit-pop icons like Ray Davies of The Kinks, Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze and Ringo Starr) to country legends (Buck Owens and Steve Earle), a hired-gun sideman (Poco, Marshall Crenshaw and with Cheap Trick when they performed The Beatles Sgt. Pepper with orchestra) and as a songwriter (with songs cut by Trisha Yearwood, Graham Gouldman, Martina McBride, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Sara Evans, Hootie and the Blowfish, Pure Prairie League, Poco and many more).
Lloyd has recorded a string of critically acclaimed solo records that blend his melodic power pop sensibility with finely tuned song craft. During his stint as the Stringed Instrument Curator at The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, he helped create and host over forty programs of the quarterly series Nashville Cats. He was the music director for the First Amendment Center’s Freedom Sings program 1999–2019. He organized and plays in Nashville’s high concept cover band, The Long Players profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered. Celebrating classic albums played live, that band marked its 20th anniversary in 2024.
Other projects include the 2019 digital-only pop-rock release of Project: Ghost Outfit with Tom Petersson, Adam Shoenfeld and Keith Brogdon. Following the passing of friend and bandmate from The Sky Kings (Rusty Young) in 2021, Lloyd and Poco members Jack Sundrud, Tom Hampton, Michael Webb and Rick Lonow joined forces in an Americana group called Cimarron 615 and made an album for the Blue Elan record label released in 2023 called Brand New Distance. This album features two of Lloyd’s original songs.
His recent solo recordings in the source biography can be found on both the Spyderpop/Big Stir labels (Lloyd*ering in 2016 and Working the Long Game in 2018) and his own imprint, Whole In One (2GTRSBSDRMS in 2019 and Don’t Kill the Messenger in 2020). The biography identifies Look Into It as his self-released album from 2024.
Selected career highlights
Across songs, stages, and archives
40+
Nashville Cats
While serving as Stringed Instrument Curator at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Lloyd helped create and host more than forty programs in the quarterly series.
1999–2019
Freedom Sings
The source biography records Lloyd’s twenty-year tenure as music director for the First Amendment Center’s Freedom Sings program.
From “Stuff”
First record, first concert
“The first rock’n’roll record I got was Rick Nelson’s Decca album, For You.” Lloyd’s first concert memory was a Dick Clark Caravan of Stars, with The Supremes and The Crystals making the lasting impression.
Projects and collaborations
Work made with others
These projects are organized from Bill Lloyd’s biography, project histories, release records, and the useful relationship context preserved in the old Links page.
Country-rock duo
Foster and Lloyd
Bill Lloyd and Radney Foster released three RCA albums during the duo’s original run; Lloyd’s project history describes the first two as self-produced. A renewed period of co-writing led to their 2011 reunion album, It’s Already Tomorrow, recorded with Keith Brogdon and Tom Petersson and guests including Sam Bush, Lloyd Green, and Beth Nielsen Chapman.
Country-rock group
The Sky Kings
Lloyd’s source history traces the group from work with Rusty Young after Foster and Lloyd’s original run. John Cowan and Patrick Simmons joined Lloyd and Young in the early lineup; the project moved from RCA to Warner Bros., toured and issued singles in the 1990s, and left an extensive archive later collected by Rhino Handmade.
Classic albums live
The Long Players
Lloyd organized and plays in the Nashville group devoted to performing classic albums live, in full and in sequence. A source record for a Wildflowers performance called it the sixty-second album covered in the band’s first nine-plus years and noted that each performance directed a portion of proceeds to charity. The source biography records the group’s 20th anniversary in 2024.
Digital pop-rock project
Project: Ghost Outfit
The 2019 digital-only project brought together Adam Shoenfeld and Bill Lloyd on guitars and vocals, Tom Petersson on bass and vocals, and Keith Brogdon on drums, with Dave Cohen on keyboards. The source credits all seven songs to Lloyd, Shoenfeld, and Petersson.
Americana group
Cimarron 615
Following Rusty Young’s death in 2021, Lloyd joined Poco members Jack Sundrud, Tom Hampton, Michael Webb, and Rick Lonow in Cimarron 615. The source biography records their Blue Elan album Brand New Distance as a 2023 release featuring two of Lloyd’s original songs. An earlier project announcement also documented the group’s participation in My Friend: A Tribute to Rusty Young.
Additional recordings
Collaborations across the catalog
The complete source discography documents Lloyd’s recordings for tribute and various-artists collections devoted to artists including Todd Rundgren, Harry Nilsson, The Hollies, Badfinger, The Beatles, The Kinks, Jeff Lynne, and Nick Lowe. Fifteen such recordings were gathered on All In One Place. The archive also preserves Paparazzi, made with Jamie Hoover and drummer Dennis Diken, while the primary biography records Lloyd’s sideman work with Marshall Crenshaw.
Curated source links
Official and archival reading
A restrained selection from the former Links page. General fan links, obsolete retailers, malformed URLs, and unrelated recommendation lists have not been carried forward.
- PureMusic career overview An archived long-form profile linked by the original site.
- Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum The institution connected to Lloyd’s curatorial work and Nashville Cats programs.
- The Long Players The official project site retained from the source Links record.
- Radney Foster Official site for Lloyd’s Foster and Lloyd partner and frequent co-writer.
- John Cowan Official site for Lloyd’s Sky Kings bandmate and longtime collaborator.
The former Freedom Sings page is unavailable, the old Poco URL no longer leads to the source-described destination, and multiple retailer and webzine links are obsolete. The Art Fein homepage reference was time-specific to 2004, so its relevant first-record and first-concert text is preserved above without carrying over the old call to visit the current homepage.