Born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, Foster struggled to support his mother after the death of his father. At the age of seventeen, Foster left the farm and moved to Washington, D.C.. He started writing songs and initially worked in a record store and then for J&F Distributors. He soon began recording local acts, and supervised Jimmy Dean\'s debut hit, "Bumming Around". \n', '

In 1953 he started to work for Mercury Records, but clashed with the company\'s executives over his endorsement of rockabilly acts. In late 1955, he unsuccessfully tried to convince Fred Talmadge, Mercury\'s Marketing Director, to sign the 20 year old Elvis Presley, then still at Sun Records but with competing offers from both Atlantic and RCA Records. Mercury, like Atlantic, offered US$30,000, both being outbid by RCA who signed Presley for US$40,000. As Presley sold 10 million record units in the next 12 months, RCA recouped the investment in less than 24 hours.[citation needed] Foster then briefly joined ABC-Paramount, where he acquired the rights to George Hamilton IV\'s recording, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth", which became the company\'s first million-seller, and also signed Lloyd Price to the label.\n', '

In March 1958, while working in Baltimore, Foster used his life savings and formed Monument Records and publishing company Combine Music with minority partner Buddy Deane, a disc jockey at WTTG. In 1959, after the company had seen some success with records by Billy Grammer and others, Deane sold his stock back to Foster, and Foster re-located the label to Hendersonville, Tennessee, in 1960. Foster remained active with the label until the 1980s.\n', '

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