There’s nothing singer-songwriter Stephanie Foster would rather do than sing.

“To sing a song is to do something that I know could change someone’s life,” Foster told It’s All About Music. “To show then that you understand what it means, and reach somebody out there – it means the world to me.
Reaching out to people in her audience, whether with her own lyrics or someone else’s, is Foster’s calling, limited so far only by her reach, and in no way by a lack of talent.

Having brought home serious hardware from the North American Country Music Association's [NACMAI] annual show in Pigeon Forge, TN, she’s garnered no fewer than eight awards in the last two years, most recently including Female Vocalist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year for her tune “Let’s Say Goodbye”.

But performing seems to be her touchstone, and her central reason for choosing the rough-and-tumble world of the music business as a career. The addictive rush of the stage set its hooks in her at an early age.

“When I was 13, I played my first real show, a local country showdown, and my first time performing I actually got to sing with the house band,” she said. “I got offstage that night, and I just loved it. I said to myself that this was something that I really wanted to do. And I’ve done it ever since.”

“The music and the energy just kind of hit me all at once, and I felt that ‘wow!’ and it felt great. I hadn’t ever done any performing at that level before, hadn’t used any tracks or anything, and the first time I tried it, I got bit. It was awesome!”

And while that was the first time the young singer-songwriter from Illinois knew how she wanted to devote the rest of her life, like so many vocalists, Foster’s very first experience performing in front of an audience was at church. “The earliest song I remember doing was ‘Mama Was Praying For Me’,” she said, beginning at age eight, when she also began taking piano.

Foster’s powerful pipes have earned her the sobriquet “the little girl with the big voice”. Standing about shoulder-height to the average fan, she proves that dynamite comes in small packages when she unleashes her considerable vocal skills on stage or in the studio.

She’s even tackled one of the most difficult vocal sub-genres – yodeling – and not only succeeded in pulling it off, but did so well that’s it’s become a mainstay of her repertoire.

Though she flirted with it in her early years, she first got an inkling she’d like to make yodeling a serious pursuit at age 16. “I said to myself one day that I really wanted to try yodeling, so I started singing ‘Blue’ by Lee Ann Rimes, everywhere I performed.” The reaction from fans was both immediate and lasting. “Now it’s my most-requested song.”

Along with learning the guitar to augment her already-impressive skills, Foster continues to hone her craft. Though she finds songwriting the most difficult enterprise she’s yet tackled, it seems that Foster can’t be denied anything she sets her mind to. Her songwriting has blossomed into a force to be reckoned with on its own, as the sublime “Let’s Say Goodbye” brought her NACMAI’s highest songwriting award this year.

“I wrote in about twenty minutes,” she admitted with a smile. “But I’m very picky. Sometimes I’ll hear myself, and say ‘I wrote that song a year ago’ and I’m not sure I still like it. I am my own worst critic.”

If her songs don’t meet her own exacting standards, she starts over from scratch. “I have some songs that I’ve started on, then decided weren’t good enough. And my friends will disagree, but I’ll tell them it’s just not good enough.” She tosses out two out of every three songs she writes.

By setting the bar very high for herself, Foster has begun enjoying the fruits of her hard work in the form of recognition by NACMAI. But while she’s proud of her accomplishments, it still all comes down to the direct connection she makes with her audience through song.

“I competed the other day,” Foster told It’s All About Music, “and I sang a song by Crystal Shawanda called ‘You Can Let Go’ and it meant a lot to me just singing it.” The powerful and moving song is written from the viewpoint of a young girl facing the death of her father. “Before I came down here [to the NACMAI Awards], two of my best friends lost their dad, and that’s what the song is about – ‘you can let go now, daddy’. When I sang that, I couldn’t help losing it at the end and crying, and when I got done, people told me ‘we related to that and we were crying with you’.”

“That meant a lot to me, that they could feel it with me."