Country singer Gary Stewart, champion of honky-tonk sound
Los Angeles Times
Gary Stewart, the country singer whose 1970s hits chronicling the alcohol-drenched honky-tonk life paralleled his own struggles with booze, drugs and depression, has died. He was 58.
Stewart was found Dec. 16 in his home in Fort Pierce, Fla., where it appeared that he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. Stewart's wife of more than 40 years, Mary Lou, had died a month earlier after a bout with pneumonia.
"He was just lost without her — it broke his heart," Robert Gallagher, entertainment coordinator at Billy Bob's Texas, told The Fort Worth Star Telegram. The club was where Stewart had recorded his final album, "Live at Billy Bob's Texas," released last year.
Another friend of Stewart once said he "couldn't put his pants on without Mary Lou around," and although their marriage lasted from the time they wed as teenagers, it was strained by his drug and alcohol use, which spiraled out of control when his hits began to fade in the late '70s.
Stewart charted 30 country singles from 1973 to 1989, hitting his commercial peak in the mid-'70s with a string of songs in which alcohol often played a central role. His only No. 1 hit was his 1975 single "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)." His high-pitched tenor and distinctive vocal quaver combined for an intense emotionalism — vulnerability and desperation rolled into one, and ideally suited to the fragile characters who populated his songs.
His driving musical sound, reflecting his early affinity for rock and country, was at odds with the smooth, string-laden sound that dominated Nashville records of the early-'70s. He was considered a champion of the raw honky-tonk sound of '40s and '50s country performers such as Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce.
Stewart was born in Kentucky, the son of a coal miner. When he was 12, the Stewarts moved to Florida. It was there that Stewart started his first band, the Tomcats, and started writing songs.
Producer Roy Dea signed Stewart to RCA Records and shepherded his recordings. Even with a run of three Top 10 country singles in 1974 and 1975, Stewart was generally considered too country for rock audiences and too rock for country audiences. His albums won the admiration of many critics, but the hits soon fell off.
In the '80s he was dropped by RCA, and his drug and alcohol use escalated. Mary Lou left him for a time, and his son, Gary Joseph, killed himself in 1988. That same year Stewart emerged, clean and sober, with his first new album in years, "Brand New."
He is survived by a daughter and a grandson.
