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MUSIC
Our
C OUNTRY
LEGEND
BY JERRY SHAW
Even when his star
was rising, country
music legend Gary
Stewart continued to
perform in his hometown of Fort Pierce.
12
MUSIC
Fort Pierce’s Gary Stewart climbed to the
top of the country and western charts but
remained firmly rooted in his hometown
ED DRONDOSKI
The framed triple platinum album, in which Stewart wrote Hollywood for Alabama, is displayed at the Stewart home.
N
early 12 years after his death, Gary Stewart holds a
place as an influential figure for bridging rock and
country music and remains Fort Pierce’s favorite
musical son.
As Stewart’s star was rising in the music world, he still felt
more comfortable playing at local clubs and honky-tonks.
When his debut album for RCA Records, Out of Hand, was
climbing up the country music charts in 1975, Stewart could
be seen sitting on the steps outside the old Fort Pierce Hotel
lounge, chatting with friends and fans while taking a break
from a performance there.
She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles) from the album
would reach No. 1 on the country singles chart. Time magazine would call him the “king of honkytonk” and Rolling
Stone magazine would name him one of the up-and-coming
performers for that year.
Stewart had successfully crossed the boundaries of country
and rock ‘n’ roll with a throbbing, gritty voice that distinguished him from all other singers of both genres.
Skinnier than a railsnake and a natural good-timing man,
Stewart had a heart of gold and was perfectly happy hangin’
with local folks. The hotel lounge, since torn down along
with the rest of building, remained a popular nightclub along
the Indian River Lagoon through the 1970s. It was a place for
local bands, so the appearance by someone of Stewart’s new
status was an extraordinary experience. It fed his reputation
as a kind of renegade from the limelight and the Nashville
scene.
SAME OLD GARY
He’d listen to questions from a star-struck admirer and
tell him what “nice guys” the Jordanaires, the singers who
backed Elvis, were to work with, but when break time was
over, he would head back into the lounge for another set to
stir up the crowd.
It was a small-town crowd listening to a big-time country
rocker. He wasn’t just a big fish in a small pond; he was a big
fish in the biggest pond. Yet he was the same old Gary.
“Gary was always a nice guy, always a funny guy, unique,
always unique,” said longtime friend and musician Tommy
Schwartz, who remembered thinking Stewart was on his way
to stardom when he first met him, just after Stewart’s first >>
13
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H I S T O R I C
LITTLE JIM
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Gary wasn’t a biker, but decided to hop on at a friend’s home.
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recording with a small label.
“I knew he had the personality and the voice. I knew one
day he was going to be a star.”
Schwartz had gone into the Air Force in 1971 and when he
came back to Fort Pierce four years later, “I got home just in
time for Gary to hit it big. He was playing with Charley Pride
at the time.”
Schwartz performed with Stewart many times on guitar,
bass and piano. When by the early 1980s Stewart had tired of
going to Nashville to record, he’d rehearse and record demos
at a studio at Schwartz’s house.
“Sometimes he’d call me in the middle of the night and say,
‘I’m gonna get something down. If I don’t get it down now I
will forget it.’ He’d show up after I put up the equipment.”
MEETING MEL
A native of Jenkins, Ky., Stewart moved to Fort Pierce at
age 15 with his family in 1959. He learned to play guitar and
piano, later playing in local clubs and writing songs. He met
country singer Mel Tillis at the Wagon Wheel in Okeechobee.
Tillis suggested he pitch his songs in Nashville. Stewart and
writing partner Bill Eldridge had some song successes with
such artists as Stonewall Jackson and Nat Stuckey.
But it was his return to Fort Pierce and his love for the
honky-tonk genre that inspired Out of Hand, now considered
a country classic. While the Wayne Carson-penned She’s
Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles) hit No. 1 on Billboard’s
country chart, Out of Hand reached No. 4 and Drinkin’ Thing
went to No. 10. The album reached No. 6 on the chart.
County music critic Bill Malone called Out of Hand “one of
the greatest honky-tonk country albums ever recorded.”
Stewart received similar critical acclaim for the album
Your Place or Mine in 1977. In 1980, he released Cactus and a
Rose, which included Southern rockers Gregg Allman and
Dickey Betts.
In the years that followed, Stewart continued to shun
the traditional attention of fame, preferring to tour clubs
throughout the country where his core audience grew stronger. Bob Dylan even told him while touring in Florida in the
1990s that Ten Years Of This, written by Stewart and Wayne >>
14
‘‘
MUSIC
He was simultaneously more country than most country
artists of his time and more of a staunch, down-and-dirty
Southern rocker than almost all of the Southern rockers. I’m
not sure that he ever realized just how good he was.
‘‘
— Late Rolling Stone editor
Chet Flippo on Gary Stewart
Carson, was one of his favorite songs. Dylan had mentioned
him in a 1978 Playboy interview, saying Stewart was one of
the recent artists he enjoyed.
TEXAS FAN BASE
Stewart drew a large following in Texas, playing such venues as the popular Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth.
“Everybody in Texas knows who Gary Stewart is,” said
Schwartz. “Most artists in Texas play his An Empty Glass, ”
written by Stewart and Dean Dillon.
Terry Porter of Luckenbach, Texas, agrees that Empty Glass
is played more than any song in Texas. Porter served as Stewart’s road manager for nine years, beginning in the 1990s. Porter had been working with such rock bands as the Rolling Stones and ZZ Top when Stewart asked him how much
he knew about country music. “I said, ‘nothing,’ ” Porter
recalled. “He said, ‘You’d be perfect with me.’ ”
Porter traveled with Stewart all over the country, including
Indian reservations — from the Sioux in South Dakota to the
Seminoles in Florida — where Stewart had huge followings.
“Gary played for the Sioux Nation to help them raise
money for a benefit opening a Jim Thorpe football arena in
South Dakota,” Porter said. “They hired us for entertainment.” Stewart performed before several thousand Native
Americans where he and his band members were named
blood brothers.
Although the hits weren’t coming as in the early days,
Stewart’s love of performing in clubs, honky-tonks and reservations kept drawing in more crowds.
It was about the music, not the money, Porter said. “Gary >>
15
MUSIC
was able to go and call his own
shots and pick his gigs and play
where he wanted to.”
Stewart’s busy schedule made
him forgetful at times, Porter said.
Once, listeners at a radio station in Texas named him “king of
the honky-tonk,” but the station
wanted Stewart to call in, or else
DJs claimed they would not play
his songs.
Listeners who wanted to hear
Stewart and daughter Shannon Stewart pose for a photo
more Stewart music called in pretending to be him, but they couldn’t taken at the St. Lucie County
answer personal questions. Stewart Fair.
was contacted and told to call the
station, but in his sleepy haze he couldn’t recall his birth date
or the names of his band members. The station didn’t believe
it was him. He had to get the names and details from other
band members and call the station back.
Porter noted that young kids today are discovering Stewart.
“He had a second generation of fans when I met him,” Porter
said. “He’s already picked up another generation. He’s got
three generations of fans who know his songs word for word.”
PARTNERS FOR LIFE
Stewart had been married to the former Mary Lou Taylor for
42 years. Only 19 days after her death from pneumonia, Stewart died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in December 2003.
Friends and family stayed close to him in the days after
Mary Lou’s death. Schwartz was with him days before, when >> Shannon with son Joseph Peavy, Gary’s grandson.
16
ED DRONDOSKI
MUSIC
Stewart played his final performance at Pineapple Joe’s in
Fort Pierce. “This was the last time he played public, and as
far as I know the last time he played guitar,” Schwartz said.
They played three or four songs that night.
The late Chet Flippo, former Rolling Stone editor, wrote in
his tribute to Stewart for the country music publication CMT:
“He was simultaneously more country than most country
artists of his time and more of a staunch, down-and-dirty
Southern rocker than almost all of the Southern rockers. I’m
not sure that he ever realized just how good he was.”
Upon hearing of his death, Flippo “lit a candle and played
a song for one of the most soulful country singers I ever met.”
By coincidence, Flippo had been writing a book about country music legend Hank Williams when he became instant
friends with Stewart at the Lone Star Café in New York.
“Stewart put his heart and soul into his music,” Flippo
wrote, but his drinkin’ songs may have contributed to his
wild intensity on and off stage, leading him “into the old
romantic notion of the outlaw singer …”
But it was his love for Mary Lou that ended it, said his
daughter Shannon Stewart. “I was raised to always know
that when one went the other was going to go,” she said. “I
knew that was the way it was going to be. He was heartbroken without my mom being here.”
Stewart enjoyed performing and writing songs with wife, Mary Lou.
MUSEUM OF SORTS
Shannon has held onto the family home — “Stewart Manor” — in Fort Pierce, near the county administration building
and old civic center, ever since, turning areas into a shrine.
“After mom and dad died, I renovated it to keep everything
as original as I can with a lot of memories,” she said. “I can >>
Stewart was known to make friends wherever he went. This photo was
taken in Arkansas in 1973.
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never sell it.”
She remembers the
jam sessions
at the house
with Gregg
Allman,
Dickey Betts
and Tanya
Tucker, who
visited the
home at times.
Stewart and
Tucker would
just “write
and write,
stay up all
night and just
write songs,”
Shannon said.
“It was very
different, but I
didn’t realize
it because I
Beer bottle cozies at the Little Jim Bridge still celwas young,”
ebrate the timesless music of Gary Stewart.
she said.
“He was on the road a lot, of course, but mom tried to
keep it as normal a house as possible.” When he’d come
home, he would hand out cash to buy groceries. Mary Lou
and Shannon would spend hours in Publix buying his
favorites, such as Hot Pockets and ice cream.
Tragically, Stewart’s son Joey committed suicide in the late
1980s. “That was really hard on all of us,” Shannon said. “I
don’t think my dad went on the road for many years.”
She remembers the happier times when Stewart played
music and stomped his foot in the living room while she was
trying to sleep or preparing for the next school day. “I’ve got
to get to school tomorrow,” she would say, and her father
would respond, “Why don’t you quit school, and I’ll buy
you a car.”
A young Shannon would go to school and classmates
would ask her what it was like, but she didn’t think it was
all that different a lifestyle.
“Now that I’m older I look back and wish I would have
cherished those moments more,” she said. “My dad was so
gifted in so many ways. I’m so upset with myself in listening to the things he was trying to tell me. But when you’re in
your 20s, you don’t have time for parents. I regret it a lot, but
there were a lot of fun times.”
Many of the memories are contained in videos she often
plays.
“I make myself sit down and watch it. I get star-struck. He
was an angel. Nobody had that grit sound like him.”
She’ll be stopped at a red light and hear An Empty Glass
coming from a nearby car. “People still have that hunger for
his music.”
Those memories come alive around Memorial Day each
year in Fort Pierce when a concert is held to commemorate
Stewart’s birthday on May 28. The turnouts are huge. Another is scheduled for this May at Little Jim Bridge to show
how Gary Stewart is as big today as when he was alive.
MUSIC
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19
MUSIC
What they are saying on Facebook
W
‘‘
e asked visitors to the Facebook site “I Remember
Fort Pierce When’’ to share some of their memories of
Gary Stewart. Here are some of them:
I grew up in Fort Pierce (my parents owned the South Dixie
Restaurant) and was living in Ohio when my wife an I were
vacationing in San Antonio back in 1998. As we were checking
into our hotel, outside of San Antonio, we happened to see a
flyer posted at the doorway of Gary, whom I had known since
the late 1960s. We were surprised to learn we were quite close
to where he was to be performing, so we attended his show.
At the show I got to speak with him during his break. We had
not seen each other in a number of years. We talked about our
working days at Grumman and car-pooling from the South Dixie Restaurant to Stuart. At the end of the show we got together
again and he and his band members signed the poster you see
at right. He said here’s to you Jerry and the South Dixie, signed
it and we said our goodbyes after talking for a while in his van
after the show. When we returned to our hotel, we realized he
was also staying there.”
— Jerry Owens
‘‘
‘‘
Wow. Where to begin? What a great talent! Remember when
he played at the “New” Fort Pierce Hotel?”
— Susan Grimes
My Dad is Billy Eldridge. My parents moved to Nashville
in 1968-1971 from Fort Pierce with Gary to pursue a music
career. I was born in Nashville while they were there. Things
didn’t work out fast enough so they all moved back home. But
they did have a few records to bring back with them. My Dad
and Gary were great friends.... When I moved back to Tennessee 33 years later I visited their old little apartment. They really
tried to get a career jump started but everyone got home sick
for Florida. And Nashville life was crazy and they were small
fish in a BIG pond.”
— Jennifer Lee Elridge Carter
This was a poster that Stewart signed for Jerry Owens when the two old
friends reunited by happenstance in San Antonio.
‘‘
‘‘
Saw him in concert at the Civic Center twice and he shopped
all the time at my store for beer. He and my dad were close
friends as kids and went to school together.”
— Bev Messer-Martin
I remember working with him at Carnaby Street. His brother
Grandel was the manager. He used to read all the music magazines and tell stories about the people in the industry he knew.
Most of them were pretty funny.”
— Tricia Sines Walker
‘‘
I suppose it was around 1995 or so. My wife and I had a
friend who was a close friend of Gary’s. She invited us to see
Gary play at an unscheduled show at whatever that bar was out
in front of Kmart on U.S. 1. We arrived, got a table and soon after Gary was onstage playing An Empty Glass. I’m not a country
music fan but that song knocked my socks off. It was beautiful.
We were called over to sit at Gary’s table and when he came
off stage and sat down I was totally taken by what a quiet, kind
and shy man he was. I listen to Gary Stewart now. I continue to
be in awe of the person I met that night.”
— Stephen Collins >> Bill Eldridge was one of Stewart’s songwriting partners.
20
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‘‘
I grew up next door to Gary and
played with his daughter, Shannon.
Some of my best memories were coming
home after school and hearing him practice out in his driveway. It was way better than watching after-school specials
on TV.”
— Tracy Bayle
‘‘
My mom was a cashier at J.M. Fields
back in the early ‘70s and I would go
up there after school and one day this
man came through her line and he was
singing away. I looked at her and said,
“Who was that guy?’’ We didn’t figure
it out until later that it was Gary Stewart
serenading us!”
— Lori Jean Noakes Testa
‘‘
I lived just a few streets down and
went to school with his son, Joey. I still
love his music although its hard to find
now days.”
— Vicki Dollar
‘‘
Way too many [memories]. But had
a lot of good times with Gary at Frankie
and Johnny’s. I listen to his music every
day and still miss him.”
— Jamie Sandlin
Stewart was only too happy to sing as well as sign his best-selling albums. Here, he signs albums at
the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville.
21
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’The most dynamic performer I have ever seen’
B
ob Melton, a former bandmate of Gary Stewart and
now a musician in Ocala,
shared these memories of his
days with Gary Stewart.
It is hard to remember exactly
when I first got to know Gary.
We weren’t more than teenagers.
He was very much already into
music and I was, too, though I
was just more into country and
folk, and not as advanced as he
was, while he was into country
Gary Stewart and Bob Melton play at and rock ‘n roll.
a gig at the Fort Pierce Hotel when
In 1973, I was playing in the
She’s Actin’ Single hit No. 1 on the
band the Phoenix at Frankie &
Billboard charts.
Johnnie’s in Fort Pierce with Fly
Hornsby, Darrell Dawson, Fred Bogert, and Howard Folcarelli when
Gary started coming in to hear us regularly. It wasn’t long before we all
got to know each other real well and Gary started bringing his guitar
and amp in to play a couple of late sets with us after the dinner crowd
was through eating. I started spending a lot of time at his house working out the twin
guitar parts on a lot of Allman Brothers songs, and he was really getting
into playing slide guitar. In fact, he was getting really good. We began
playing more and more Allman Brothers, southern rock, and country
rock at Frankie and Johnny’s and we were packing the place so tight
there were lines waiting outside to get in. The only problem was it was
not what management wanted. They wanted slick country, so when
they told us either Gary goes, or we all go we all went -- right down
the street to the Fort Pierce Pierce Hotel. When I first started playing with Gary he didn’t even drink. When
we were at his house practicing guitar parts together and writing in
the early days, he was so excited about learning to play slide and so
inspired by what bands like the Allman Brothers were doing, he was
like a kid in a candy store. He was obsessed and couldn’t get enough.
He would really wear me out. He had so much energy he was electric,
and that is the way he was on stage back then, too. He literally played
and sang like his hair was on fire. I am not exaggerating a bit when I
say that back in the days of playing with him at the Fort Pierce Hotel
he was the most dynamic performer I have ever seen. He would totally
mesmerize the audience. There was no way to ignore the electricity
coming out of him when he took off on a slide guitar solo. And he got
very good at it. We did some memorable shows at the Fort Pierce Hotel until after
Gary had signed with RCA later in 1973. When RCA sent him on the
road with Charlie Pride to replace Ronnie Milsap in 1974, our band
scattered. But as soon as RCA let Gary hire his own band after he had
a couple of hit records, he brought Darrel and me back in.
Gary was pretty frustrated with the music business even when I was
playing with him. RCA never let him do his music the way he wanted
to. When we started backing him up, all country backup bands wore
matching polyester suits with shiny boots and Elvis hairdos. He didn’t
want that and we didn’t either. We had long hair, wore jeans, and tennis
shoes or scruffy boots, nobody dressed alike and we played loud..
When it became known in Nashville that Gary was leaving Charlie
Pride’s show to strike out on his own, Country Music Magazine sent
their best writer to Fort Pierce for the details. His name escapes me now
after too many years, or beers, but Gary brought him out to hear us at
the Corner Bar, a honky tonk at Orange Avenue and Jenkins Road. The
place was packed to the rafters with cowboys. Gary got up and did a
few songs with us and brought down the house -- and this band did
not even have drums. It was a little different. Long haired country boys
with banjos, fiddles, flat-top guitars and mandolins playing the Beatles,
the Eagles, and Bill Monroe. In fact, in the article for the magazine, the
writer said we sounded like the “heretic sons of Bill Monroe.” Gary hired an old friend of ours, Larry Munson, to play drums and
22
be the road manager. Our banjo
player, Ralph Profetta, was elected
to get a steel guitar
and at least learn
how to play the
intro to “She’s
Actin’ Single.” Our
very first road trip
was two shows out
in New Mexico and
Arizona around
Christmas of 1974.
That was certainly
a trip to remember. We rented a
Winebago and
headed west. Our
first show was in
Farmington, New
Mexico, and the
next night we went
to Window Rock,
Ariz., to play at
Gary Stewart’s backup band was comprised mostly
the capital of the
of people from Fort Pierce. In photograph are, from
Navajo Indian Natop, Ralph Profetta (steel and banjo), Tommy Ray
tion. From Indian
Miller (guitar), Darrell Dawson (bass and vocals),
country we went to Gary at the bottom, then Bob Melton (guitar and
vocals), and in the center is John Whalen (guitar,
Snowmass, Colo.,
fiddle, mandolin, vocals).
without Gary to
play a few weeks
at a place called Fanny Hill’s Saloon. We went straight from there
to Nashville for a recording session with Gary that also served as a
chance for Jerry Bradley, who was the president of RCA, to meet us
and see if we were good enough to back up their artist. It all went great. Ralph had not had time to learn the steel yet, so
Weldon Myric, one of the finest steel pickers in Nashville, came in
and did the sessions with us. We did five or six of Gary’s original songs
and those recordings are now classics, even though they were never
released on record. So we were approved, and became Gary’s first
backup band.
Gary was funny as hell. He would do some crazy things stone cold
sober. We were in a cafe out in west Texas one time eating lunch. It was
a home cooking place full of dusty cowboys, and our band was right in
the middle of the room. Gary could do bird calls and you couldn’t tell
where they were coming from. He had everyone in there looking for
birds. He kept that up and had everyone in there going nuts with his
jumping up and trying to catch the birds. Then after he had done that
for a while, he started crawling around the room on all fours going up
to tables and begging like a dog and whimpering for food. Gary was generous, but very frugal in many ways, too. He came
from a dirt poor family and he knew the value of a dollar. Sometimes
he was very tight, but when he felt like it he would blow money like
it was nothing. We could not pass a junk or antique store along the
road that he didn’t make us stop the bus and he would find all kinds
of crazy things he would buy that we would have to climb over for the
rest of the trip. It was a pretty crazy ride, but I wouldn’t have missed
it for the world. He was very eccentric in so many ways it is hard to
count them all. We went on to play many memorable shows. I played with him from
1973 until 1980 and did some occasional shows with him up until
about 1990. I made many surreal memories with him. It was quite an
honor to have lived through those days with Gary and the wonderful
and talented guys who we shared the bus and the stage with. I always
appreciate the chance to say good things about Gary. He was one of
the best friends I ever had and I will miss him forever.