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y Dirk Fontenot“For your own sake, son,I hope you ain’t the lawIt’s a long way outta this holleryou just might get lost…”—“Easy People”Gary Stewart (1971)taste and jumping in the pool this earlymight freak you out too much to progressany further. But know this: there is noone else that has put on that kind ofperformance in a country studio beforeor since. Sure, Hank bared his soul withsometimes disastrously painful results, butit was never, ever this alarming, ghoulish ordownright hideous.Not that Gary couldn’t swing thependulum the other way. There areseveral tracks in his catalog—“Quits,”“Shady Streets,” “Let’s Forget ThatWe’re Married,” and the crown jewel “AnEmpty Glass”—that demonstrate a deep,unflinching sadness impossible to ignore.Unbelievably, in these moments, Garymanages to keep it together long enoughto deliver a vocal that smacks of the highheavens: crystalline, precise, weightywith emotion but airy in maneuverabilityand tone, not unlike a higher-registeredmodification on Keith Whitley butdrenched in all the pain of Hank Sr. orTownes Van Zandt.It all ended on December 16, 2003, witha shotgun blow to the neck. Fitting thatGary Stewart would take out his throatfirst: it was that mad, scrambled howl thatso defined his trajectory in life, a hollerthat brought him fame—however briefand unwanted—and a certain level ofnotoriety that other throats couldn’t touch.Ladies and gentleman, as writer JimmyMcDonough once coined him: the “CountYorga” of Honky-Tonk.If you’ve never heard any Gary Stewart,known to his adoring and slightly rabid fanbase as “King of the Honky-Tonks,” youmight want to start off small, maybe a sipof his bigger mainstream hits: “She’s Actin’Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles),” “Out ofHand” or “An Empty Glass.” You’ll stillnotice that the voice is barely keeping ittogether, completely singular and utterlyshocking in its range and tone. When Ifirst heard “She’s Actin’ Single,” I wasdriving through northeast Texas with mygirl, on our way to a wedding and bumpingclassic country stations (Texas absolutelydemolishes us in the sheer number ofclassic country stations available). It cameon and I remember being floored: whatwas this voice? Who possesses somethinglike that in country? Shiny steel guitar andSpector-like wall of background vocals?Yes, that had been done here and there,but the lyric struck me first. “My heart isbreaking / like the tiny bubbles” *scratcheshead* Is he being serious? Is this a comedy?Uh, yes please! More!And there was more, because... that voice,singing with a nutso quiver—the epitomeof bloodcurdling anxiety—and layingit down with reckless abandon, but withstunning clarity and a tone of high-honey.A desperate man, lost in shellshock,the “King of the Honky-Tonks” never got his due.And not just in the cluelessantiquity machines thatrun Nashville, but evenamongst his own brethrenin “outlaw country”offering the fragments of his cracked, pettysoul up to that great altar of country andwestern. A heartbroken drunk of a honkytonkwizard casting his notes to the wind,because the sense of identity—the depthof passion—is what mattered, not theplacement or key or polish.I discovered in the months after hearing“She’s Actin’ Single” that this was his“pop” hit. The revelations soon after,the recognition of this lone wolf ’s careerand work, I could not prepare myself for.Stewart was a beacon in country music (ormaybe more appropriately, a fiery blacklight in the devil’s honky-tonk) that leftroom for no one else, a flaming, solitarystar nearly incomparable to anyone else inthe genre. The only two other names thatpop up, Jerry Reed and Rodney Crowell,are good reference points, but Gary is trulya genre unto himself (Jerry’s got some ofthe amphetamine drive laced in his work,but his singing is fairly straightforward incomparison; Rodney is even tamer, butthe invitation to comparison with Garylies in the inventive, breath-of-fresh-airsongwriting).Gary was an absolute demon in andout of the studio, with a refusal tocompromise that eventually ruined hiscareer. Throughout the 1970s, he wassigned to RCA and early on garneredthem a strong, straight country classic withthe album Out of Hand. Things spiraleddownhill after that, though, amidst talesof dumpster-diving for cocaine and othersordid happenings. And that was just thehearsay. The tangible evidence, and alsothe biggest testament to Gary’s unnervinginability to compromise his vocal andmusical style, was in his ever-progressingvocal oddities. The man sang with somuch deranged gusto, bizarro vibrato anddramatic enunciation that his record labelRCA dropped him in 1983. There areseveral examples laced throughout Gary’s‘70s catalog that demonstrate the weirdnessthat defined his legacy, with arguably thebest example being “Honky Tonk Man.” Ifyou want to cut straight to the thick, juicyslab of gut-wrenching agony, then shootyourself to this one, but I don’t recommendit. You, like Roy Dea (producer on thisrecord), would be left with more questionsthan answers. Gary is a bitter, acquiredAnd while some might argue thatidiosyncrasy, knockout lyrics and a gaudy,yet gorgeous vocal does not make aNashville Hall-of-Famer, Gary was alsofond of riding the beat. I’m talking DonnaSummer-on-Giorgio beat-riding. In fact,disco—minus the harsh demonizationof yesteryear—is a fitting comparison. Inthe best of Gary’s work regarding this, asin a track like “Ten Years of This” (BobDylan’s favorite), the beats are propulsive4/4s, the guitar lines polished and sexy,the melodic riffs gooey and unforgettable.And what Gary does with this vocally issomething to behold. He weaves in and outof the rhythm, using his vocal as its ownpercussion, punctuating here and there toreplicate a tom or hi-hat, mastering therhythm like a bull rider, with all the tearstained,tragicomic subtexts of a rodeoclown.There is no particular reason to becelebrating him now. No boxed sets onthe horizon, no reissues. But there shouldbe. Outside of his cult-like fan base, the“King of the Honky-Tonks” never got hisdue. And not just in the clueless antiquitymachines that run Nashville, but evenamongst his own brethren in “outlawcountry” (a genre that Gary lived harderthan most of his compatriots). There arethose out there clued into the oddballsingers and wild geniuses that have alwayszeroed in on him and other artists of hisilk: Bobby Bare, Moe Bandy, Townes. ButGary was different from even these guys,a loose and losing hellion that didn’t fit inanywhere, stuck in a nameless purgatorybetween country and rock way before itwas accepted and standardized. If you lookfor articles, bios and whatnot, outside ofwriter Jimmy McDonough’s epic feature“Little Junior, King of the Honky-Tonks:the Life and Death of Gary Stewart” (amust-read if you’re going down the Pathof Gary, available at furious.com/perfect/garystewart.html), you will find next tonothing in terms of insight and impact.And for someone who’s warped the genreuntil it became taffy in his throat, hedeserves so much more. God Bless you,Little Junior. I hope you and Mary Louare rollin’ bones and hollerin’ out jukeboxmonsters somewhere out there.27