Gary Stewart: Country Wild Genius Gets Posthumous Revival
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- Jimmy McDonough's biography "Gary Stewart: I Am from the Honky Tonks," published last November, became an unexpected critical and commercial hit despite being the hardest of his books to find a publisher for.
- Delmore Recording Society released "One Track Mind," a collection of Stewart's early-1970s demos, while Sony has finally put some of his 1970s RCA albums on streaming services.
- Rising country and indie-rock stars including Ella Langley, Zach Top, Wednesday frontwoman Karly Hartzman, Charley Crockett, and Ryan Davis now publicly praise Stewart, with the Kentucky-born Davis calling him "a superhero" whose music is "unfathomably real."
- Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Joe Strummer were among a handful of voices who championed Stewart during his lifetime; Dylan told the author Stewart "sings like a man arguing with destiny" and "sounds like he's already living in the aftermath."
- Stewart's 1975 single "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)" topped the country charts, and producer Roy Dea — who also signed Elvis and saw Hank Williams — said he "never knew anyone who blew me away like Gary."
- Stewart died by suicide three weeks after his wife Mary Lou died on November 26, 2003, ending decades of quaalude, meth, marijuana, cocaine, and later OxyContin addiction spent in a Florida trailer park with blacked-out windows.
- Stewart's daughter Shannon Ashburn is campaigning to get her father into the Country Music Hall of Fame and says she has unreleased recordings she wants to share, including one of his most loyal followings on Native American reservations.
Why it matters: Stewart walked away from Nashville at the height of his powers and was functionally erased from country music history by addiction, dying with barely a notice in 2003; the simultaneous success of McDonough's biography, Delmore's demo reissue, and Sony's streaming catalog could be the first credible route to the Country Music Hall of Fame for an artist Dylan, Nelson, and Strummer had argued for decades was among the 20th century's most expressive vocalists.
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