Gary Stewart (singer)
Encyclopedia
Gary Stewart was a country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

ian and songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 known for his distinctive vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...

 voice and his southern rock influenced
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...

, outlaw country
Outlaw country
Outlaw country is a subgenre of country music, most popular during the late 1960s and the 1970s , sometimes referred to as the outlaw movement or simply outlaw music...

 sound. During the peak of his popularity in the mid-1970s Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine described him as the "king of honkytonk
Honky tonk
A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...

." He is remembered for a series of country chart hits from the mid- to late- 1970s, his biggest hit being "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)
She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)
"She's Actin' Single " is athe title of a song written by Wayne Carson and recorded by American country music singer Gary Stewart. It was released in March 1975 as the third and final single from the album, Out of Hand. The song would be Gary Stewart's third top ten hit on the country chart and his...

," which topped the U.S. country singles charts in 1975.

Early life and career

Named after actor Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...

, Gary R. Stewart was born in the Letcher County, Kentucky
Letcher County, Kentucky
Letcher County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 25,277. Its county seat is Whitesburg. The county is named for Robert P...

, town of Jenkins
Jenkins, Kentucky
As of the census of 2010, there were 2,203 people, 877 households, and 671 families residing in the city. The population density was 281.2 people per square mile . There were 1,122 housing units at an average density of 131.4 per square mile...

, the son of George and Georgia Stewart. In 1959 his father, a coal miner
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

, sustained an injury while working in the mines, and shortly afterwards the family moved to Fort Pierce
Fort Pierce, Florida
Fort Pierce, also spelled Ft. Pierce, is a city in St. Lucie County, Florida, USA. It is known as The Sunrise City. The population was 37,959 at the 2004 census. As of 2008, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 41,000. It is the county seat of St. Lucie County.Fort Pierce is part...

, a city on Florida's
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 coast.

Learning guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, Stewart began touring with local bands and writing songs in his teens. He married Mary Lou Taylor, more than three years his senior, at age seventeen and began working days in an airplane factory. He still played in rock and country bands at night. While playing in an Okeechobee, Florida
Okeechobee, Florida
Okeechobee is a city in Okeechobee County, Florida, United States. The population was 5,376 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 5,784. It is the county seat of Okeechobee County. The Speckled Perch Festival is held annually in honor of the most...

, honky-tonk known as the Wagon Wheel, Stewart met country singer Mel Tillis
Mel Tillis
Lonnie Melvin Tillis , known professionally as Mel Tillis, is an American country music singer. Although he recorded songs since the late 1950s, his biggest success occurred in the 1970s, with a long list of Top 10 hits....

, who advised Stewart to travel to Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 to pitch his songs. He recorded a few sides for the small Cory label in 1964 and began co-writing songs with local policeman Bill Eldridge. Stewart and Eldridge wrote Stonewall Jackson's
Stonewall Jackson (musician)
Stonewall Jackson is an American country singer and musician who achieved his greatest fame during country's "golden" honky tonk era in the 1950s and early 1960s.-Early years:...

 1965 country hit, "Poor Red Georgia Dirt." Signed to the Kapp
Kapp Records
Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp . David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca Records and RCA Victor Records. Kapp licensed its records to London Records for release in the UK.In 1967, David Kapp sold his label to MCA Inc...

 label in 1968, Stewart made several unsuccessful recordings. But several songwriting successes followed for artists like Billy Walker
Billy Walker (musician)
William Marvin Walker , better known as Billy Walker, was an American country music singer and guitarist best-known for his 1962 hit, " Charlie's Shoes"...

 ("She Goes Walking Through My Mind," "Traces of a Woman," "It's Time to Love Her"), Cal Smith
Cal Smith
Calvin Grant Shofner , known professionally as Cal Smith, is an American country musician, most famous for his 1974 hit "Country Bumpkin."-Career:...

 ("You Can't Housebreak a Tomcat", "It Takes Me All Night Long"), and Nat Stuckey
Nat Stuckey
Nathan Stuckey was an American country singer. He recorded for various labels between 1966 and 1978, charting in the top 10 of Hot Country Songs with "Sweet Thang", "Plastic Saddle", "Sweet Thang and Cisco" and "Take Time to Love Her"-Biography:Raised in Atlanta, Texas, in Cass County, Nat Stuckey...

 ("Sweet Thang And Cisco"). He even played piano for a time in Charley Pride's
Charley Pride
Charley Frank Pride is an American country music singer. His smooth baritone voice was featured on thirty-nine number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His greatest success came in the early- to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis...

 band the Pridesmen, and can be heard on Pride's live In Person double-album. Disappointed with Music Row
Music Row
Music Row is an area just to the southwest of Downtown Nashville, Tennessee that is home to hundreds of businesses related to the country music, gospel music, and Contemporary Christian music industries...

, however, he soon returned to Florida and resumed playing countrified rock 'n' roll in local clubs and bars.

Peak of career

Stewart was dropped from Kapp and then from Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

, but a series of demo tapes, including some countrified Motown tunes, found their way into the hands of producer Roy Dea, who convinced Jerry Bradley to sign Stewart to RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

. He returned to Nashville in 1973 and recorded a cover version of "Ramblin' Man
Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers Band song)
"Ramblin' Man" is a 1973 song by The Allman Brothers Band, featured on their album Brothers and Sisters. It was written by Dickey Betts, who also sang lead vocals....

" by the Allman Brothers
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...

, both of whom were Stewart's personal friends. It charted at only #63 on the country charts, but his follow-up, 1974's "Drinkin' Thing," became a top-ten country hit. Stewart's album Out of Hand
Out of Hand
Out of Hand is a 1975 honky tonk album by Country music singer Gary Stewart. The singer's second album, his debut for RCA Records, reached #6 on Billboard's "Country Albums" chart, launching three charting singles, "Drinkin' Thing" , "Out of Hand" , and "She's Actin' Single "...

was released in early 1975. "Out of Hand," the title cut from the album, became a #4 country hit and was followed by number one hit "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)."

The album Out of Hand, which climbed to #6 on the Billboard country albums chart, has since become one of the most critically lauded country albums of the 1970s. Rock critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...

 gave the album an A- saying that it "was the best regular issue country LP I've heard in about five years." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

gave it high praise as well, stating that, "With practitioners like Stewart around, honky-tonk—and rockabilly—may not be dead yet." Thom Jurek of Allmusic later gave the album five of five stars and stated that: "A strong case could be made for Out of Hand as one of the Top 100 country records of all time. It might be in this writer's Top Ten!" Country music critic Bill Malone
Bill Malone
Bill C. Malone is an American historian specializing in country music and other forms of traditional American music. He is the author of the 1968 book Country Music, U.S.A., the first definitive academic history of country music...

 called Out of Hand "one of the greatest honky-tonk country albums ever recorded."

Later in 1975, MCA
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

 released Stewart's old Kapp material scoring a #15 hit with the single "You're Not the Woman You Use to Be." For the rest of the 1970s Stewart played the honky tonks with his road band, The Honky Tonk Liberation Army, and recorded similar albums with modest success for RCA: 1976's Steppin' Out; 1977's Your Place or Mine (which featured guest artists Nicolette Larson
Nicolette Larson
Nicolette Larson was an American pop singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young, as well as her 1978 cover of Young's "Lotta Love". The song, her debut single, was a Number One Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks hit and #8 pop hit that year...

, Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...

, and Rodney Crowell
Rodney Crowell
Rodney Crowell is a Grammy Award-winning musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music....

); and 1978's Little Junior. These albums spawned several top forty hit singles, including: "Flat Natural Born Good-Timin' Man," "In Some Room Above the Street," "Single Again," "Your Place or Mine," "Quits," and "Whiskey Trip." His 1977 ode to marital distress entitled "Ten Years of This," from the album Your Place or Mine, was a favorite of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

 and a #16 hit.

Later career and death

Though his late 1970s albums were well-received by critics and his core audience, Stewart never established a large audience. He was often labeled as "too country" for rock listeners and "too rock" for country fans. In 1980, he released the Chips Moman
Chips Moman
Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman is an American record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. As a record producer, Moman is known for recording Elvis Presley, Bobby Womack, Carla Thomas, and Merrilee Rush, as well as guiding the career of the Box Tops in Memphis, Tennessee during the 1960s...

 produced Cactus and a Rose
Cactus and a Rose
Cactus and a Rose is a 1980 honky tonk/Southern rock album by Country music singer Gary Stewart. The singer's seventh studio album, it only reached reached #49 on Billboard's "Country Albums" chart, spawning two low-charting singles: "Cactus and a Rose" and "Are We Dreamin' the Same Dream"...

which featured Southern rockers Gregg Allman
Gregg Allman
Gregory Lenoir Allman , known as Gregg Allman, is a rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia...

, Dickey Betts
Dickey Betts
Forrest Richard "Dickey" Betts is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and also won with the band a best rock performance Grammy Award for his...

, Mike Lawler, and Bonnie Bramlett
Bonnie Bramlett
Bonnie Bramlett is an American singer and sometime actress known for her distinctive vocals in rock and pop music. This began in the mid 1960s as a backing singer, forming the husband-and-wife team of Delaney & Bonnie, and continuing to the present day as a solo artist.-Life and career:Bramlett...

. It did not garner much airplay and RCA teamed Stewart up with songwriter Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon is an American country music artist. Between 1982 and 1993, Dillon recorded six studio albums on various labels, and charted several singles on the Billboard country charts. Although he has not charted since 1993, Dillon has continued to write several hit songs for other artists, most...

 for a pair of duet records. Soon after, Stewart returned to Florida, where alcoholism and drug use kept him from recording for much of the 1980s. His son, Gary Joseph Stewart, committed suicide late in the decade as well. Stewart signed with the HighTone
HighTone Records
HighTone Records was an independent record label based in Oakland, California. Hightone specialized in American roots music including, country, rockabilly, western swing, blues and gospel. The label was created by Larry Sloven and Bruce Bromberg in 1983...

 label in 1988 and recorded three albums over the next five years. These albums included fan favorites like the minor-hit "An Empty Glass (That's the Way the Day Ends)" (written by Stewart and Dillon), "Let's Go Jukin'" (written by Stewart and Betts), and "Brand New Whiskey" (written by Stewart and his wife).

Stewart continued to tour through the 1990s, playing venues such as Fort Worth's
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

 Billy Bob's Texas several times a year. During this time Bob Dylan, while touring with Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

 in Florida, drove out of his way to meet Stewart, "confessing that he'd played Stewart's ode to marital malaise 'Ten Years of This' over and over, the record casting a spell over him." In 2003, Stewart released Live at Billy Bob's Texas, his first album in ten years and his first ever live album. Reviewers at Allmusic gave it good marks.

On November 26, 2003, the day before Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...

, his wife of nearly forty-three years, Mary Lou, died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

. Stewart, who had been scheduled to play Billy Bob's three days later, canceled his concert appearances. His friends later told reporters that he was extremely despondent after Mary Lou's death. On December 16, his daughter's boyfriend and Stewart's very close friend, Bill Hardman visited Stewart's Fort Pierce, Florida, home to check on his welfare. They found Stewart dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck.

Albums

Year Album US Country Label
1973 You're Not the Woman You Used to Be MCA
1975 Out of Hand
Out of Hand
Out of Hand is a 1975 honky tonk album by Country music singer Gary Stewart. The singer's second album, his debut for RCA Records, reached #6 on Billboard's "Country Albums" chart, launching three charting singles, "Drinkin' Thing" , "Out of Hand" , and "She's Actin' Single "...

6 RCA
1976 Steppin' Out 15
1977 Your Place or Mine 17
1978 Little Junior 35
1979 Gary 45
1980 Cactus and a Rose
Cactus and a Rose
Cactus and a Rose is a 1980 honky tonk/Southern rock album by Country music singer Gary Stewart. The singer's seventh studio album, it only reached reached #49 on Billboard's "Country Albums" chart, spawning two low-charting singles: "Cactus and a Rose" and "Are We Dreamin' the Same Dream"...

49
1982 Brotherly Love (with Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon is an American country music artist. Between 1982 and 1993, Dillon recorded six studio albums on various labels, and charted several singles on the Billboard country charts. Although he has not charted since 1993, Dillon has continued to write several hit songs for other artists, most...

)
23
1983 Those Were the Days (with Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon is an American country music artist. Between 1982 and 1993, Dillon recorded six studio albums on various labels, and charted several singles on the Billboard country charts. Although he has not charted since 1993, Dillon has continued to write several hit songs for other artists, most...

)
54
1988 Brand New 63 Hightone
1990 Battleground
1993 I'm a Texan
2003 Live at Billy Bob's Smith Music Group

Singles

Year Single Chart Positions Album
US Country
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

CAN Country
1973 "Ramblin' Man
Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers Band song)
"Ramblin' Man" is a 1973 song by The Allman Brothers Band, featured on their album Brothers and Sisters. It was written by Dickey Betts, who also sang lead vocals....

"
63 Single only
1974 "Drinkin' Thing
Drinkin' Thing
"Drinkin' Thing" is athe title of a song written by Wayne Carson and recorded by American country music singer Gary Stewart. It was released in May 1974 as the lead single from the album, Out of Hand. The song peaked at number 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.-Chart performance:...

"
10 Out of Hand
"Out of Hand
Out of Hand (song)
"Out of Hand" is athe title of a song written by Tom Jans and Jeff Barry and recorded by American country music singer Gary Stewart. It was released in October 1974 as the second single from the album of the same name, Out of Hand. The song peaked at number 4 on the U.S...

"
4 10
1975 "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)
She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)
"She's Actin' Single " is athe title of a song written by Wayne Carson and recorded by American country music singer Gary Stewart. It was released in March 1975 as the third and final single from the album, Out of Hand. The song would be Gary Stewart's third top ten hit on the country chart and his...

"
1 4
"You're Not the Woman You Used to Be" 15 22 You're Not the Woman You Used to Be
"Flat Natural Born Good-Timin' Man" 20 17 Steppin' Out
1976 "Oh, Sweet Temptation" 23 17
"In Some Room Above the Street" 15 14
"Your Place or Mine" 11 7 Your Place or Mine
1977 "Ten Years of This" 16 25
"Quits" 26 Steppin' Out
1978 "Whiskey Trip" 16 5 Little Junior
"Single Again" 36 45
"Stone Wall (Around Your Heart)" 41
1979 "Shady Streets" 66 44 Gary
"Mazelle" 75
1980 "Cactus and a Rose" 48 Cactus and the Rose
"Are We Dreamin' the Same Dream"/"Roarin'" 66
1981 "Let's Forget That We're Married" 72 Gary's Greatest
"She's Got a Drinking Problem" 36
1982 "Brotherly Love" (with Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon
Dean Dillon is an American country music artist. Between 1982 and 1993, Dillon recorded six studio albums on various labels, and charted several singles on the Billboard country charts. Although he has not charted since 1993, Dillon has continued to write several hit songs for other artists, most...

)
41 Brotherly Love
"She Sings Amazing Grace" 83
1983 "Those Were the Days" (with Dean Dillon) 47 Those Were the Days
"Smokin' in the Rockies" (with Dean Dillon) 71
1984 "Hey, Bottle of Whiskey" 75 Singles only
"I Got a Bad Attitude" 64
1988 "Brand New Whiskey" 63 Brand New
1989 "An Empty Glass (That's the Way the Day Ends)" 64
"Rainin', Rainin', Rainin'" 77

External links

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