Early Life and Career
Named after actor Gary Cooper, Gary R. Stewart was born in the Letcher County, Kentucky, town of Jenkins, the son of George and Georgia Stewart. In 1959 his father, a coal miner, sustained an injury while working in the mines, and shortly afterwards the family moved to Fort Pierce, a city on Florida's Atlantic coast.
Learning guitar and piano, 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, honky-tonk known as the Wagon Wheel, Stewart met country singer Mel Tillis, who advised Stewart to travel to Nashville 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 1965 country hit, "Poor Red Georgia Dirt." Signed to the Kapp label in 1968, Stewart made several unsuccessful recordings. But several songwriting successes followed for artists like Billy Walker ("She Goes Walking Through My Mind," "Traces of a Woman," "It's Time to Love Her"), Cal Smith ("You Can't Housebreak a Tomcat", "It Takes Me All Night Long"), and Nat Stuckey ("Sweet Thang And Cisco"). He even played piano for a time in Charley Pride's band the Pridesmen, and can be heard on Pride's live In Person double-album. Disappointed with Music Row, however, he soon returned to Florida and resumed playing countrified rock 'n' roll in local clubs and bars.
Read more about this topic: Gary Stewart (singer)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“...to many a mother’s heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother’s kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“To you, God the Singer, our voices we raise,
to you Song Incarnate, we give all our praise,
to you, Holy Spirit, our life and our breath,
be glory for ever, through life and through death.”
—Peter Davison (20th century)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)