Word: stewart
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Stewart could leave any time he wants. He has a contract with RCA Records up in New York. All three of his albums have been gushed over by critics. He has had three No. 1 country hit singles-one of which offers a shot of sheer country angst: My heart is breakin' like the tiny bubbles./ She's actin' single, I'm drinkin' doubles. The success of songs like that makes Fort Pierce mighty proud, especially the 31 Stewarts listed in the phone book, all of whom are related to Gary some way or other...
Preceded by two headlights, a funnel of dust announces the arrival of Bill Eldridge, a former Fort Pierce cop who helped write Stewart's first album, You 're Not the Woman You Used to Be. Eldridge has come to escort his friend, now somewhat lulled by the grease and beer, to the evening's performance. It is a Tuesday night, normally a slow evening, but the Flying Bridge Lounge is packed with a country crowd ready to greet the local boy with rebel yells. Men cradle sweating bottles of Pabst against their paunches and admire...
Class Act. As a performer, Gary Stewart's special attraction is the energetic diversity he displays when given a beer and a stage. Hunched over the piano, a spindly Ichabod partial to wide-brimmed swamper hats, Stewart invites everybody to get loose to something like his own Hank Western, with a weakness for "any good-lookin' woman, any kind of booze." The delivery, in a tight, nasal tenor voice, is as seasoned as the inside of an old spittoon, but heartfelt. Says Stewart: "It's all a poor man's music that talks about troubles...
...When Stewart was twelve, his father moved the family to Fort Pierce following the failure of the family coal mine in Payne Gap, Ky. Two years later, Gary found a book of diagrammed musical chords. At 15 he was playing in local bars. By 17, he was married and working in an airplane factory. He began his day at the tool crib, but would soon be scribbling song lyrics on a note pad. "I lived for the weekend, and when it came I hated to see the morning come...
Shortly after turning 21, Stewart began playing piano "full time," a euphemism that translated into $55 for a weekend's work. That money, plus tips brought home by his wife Mary Lou, who was working as a bartender, allowed Stewart to spend most of the week writing. When Bill Eldridge joined him, the two began making annual summer trips to Nashville to peddle their wares...