RCA Country Legends: Gary Stewart

This volume in the RCA Country Legends series is perhaps its most overdue. The late, hard-living, tragedy-prone Gary Stewart was the artist who best walked the line between the hard honky tonk country of George Jones and Merle Haggard and the emerging Southern rock exemplified by the Allman Brothers and the Marshall Tucker Band. While he had a few hit singles and one hit album for RCA, he never really caught on with country audiences. Whenever he performed for rock audiences, he was successful, but RCA's reactionary marketing tactics wouldn't let them see the forest for the trees. They understood their market but underestimated their artists continually — cases in point include Waylon Jennings before 1972, Mickey Newbury, and Willie Nelson. This compilation contains all of Stewart's charting singles for RCA; among them are classics like "Drinkin' Thing," "Flat Natural Born Good Timin' Man," "Out of Hand," "Quits," "I See the Want To in Your Eyes," and, of course, "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)." Also included here are Stewart's first, self-penned single (before his deal with RCA), "Sweet-Tater and Cisco," which didn't chart but became a hit for Nat Stuckey, and the excellent "Whiskey Trip" and "Little Junior" from his final albums for the label. What they add up to is a portrait of an enigma, a singer whose unique, high, and hard Southern voice had as much in common with Jerry Lee Lewis as it did with Jones, and whose delivery, no matter what he sang, was devastatingly authentic. Rich Kienzle's liner essay is a well-considered portrait of the artist, and the music itself is timeless.