@story  S.T. COOK
@images  FOS Project via Mike Hayley

The FOS Project Band does rehearse. For one thing, they haven’t been together that long.



Loren Bailey, from Springdale, played in the Hardtops, with Joe Giles. He started a fuel management business in 1992, but still sang and played guitar for fun, with friends like Sid Groves. Then Sid came down with cancer. Loren watched his friend battle the disease, and saw the comfort and support he got from Hope, Inc. Sid’s dying wish was for Loren to get a bunch of their friends together, form a band and hold a fundraiser for the organization. Loren started Friends of Sid, and after a couple of successful fundraising events, the band started to take on a life of its own, evolving into the FOS Project, which I believe is the best new band in Northwest Arkansas.

The FOS Project breaks all kinds of rules: their name isn’t clever or funny or cool, it actually means something; they’re an eight piece band – with horns; they play soul music -- not blues, soul; and most of them are in their fifties. None of which matters because of the musical skills and wildly varied experience Sid and Loren’s friends bring to the group.

There’s Chuck Tripp, a twenty-two year veteran with the Arkansas Highway Police. He went to Springdale High with Loren and played trumpet in Band with Sid. He also gigged as the “Chuck Lunch Horns” with Mike Mohney, before Moheny became a Blue Football.

Steve Baskin knew Loren and Chuck at Springdale High. He’s played bass in a variety of bands. He’s also in his twenty-third year as band director at Huntsville High School.

Randy Reese played drums in Bentonville High School and skipped college “to become a rock and roll star.”  He put down his sticks for eighteen years, but gradually came back to music. Now he drives a dump truck by day, and is the FOS Project’s foundation at night.

Dr. John Parks is a recently retired orthopedic surgeon who heard about a band that needed a keyboard player. He says it took a little while to get the rust off his fingers, but he’s enjoying the chance to play again.

Jake Edington is the youngest member of the band, under thirty, and may be the best musician. He started on sax when he was six, studied music at the University of Arkansas, and has played every kind of music in every kind of band in the area. His solos get the spotlight in any song the band performs, but he describes the FOS experience as “eight musicians and no egos.”

Loren sang lead and played rhythm guitar when the band started out, but when their lead guitarist left he assumed that role, and says he’s still learning. He can concentrate on guitar now because he has two powerful vocalists to share the singing.

Diana Billingslea grew up in Rogers, moved to North Hollywood after graduation and did a fair amount of studio work. When it was time for her kids to start school she came home. If you don’t think Randy Newman writes soul music you should hear her sing “You Can Keep Your Hat On.”