ANGEL OF THE NIGHT. This was written by Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson. I was in the Station Inn in Nashville one night listening to their band, the SteelDrivers, making notes on the songs I liked, and this was one of them.
Later, my A&R person, Tracy Gershon, played it for me and I said, "Hey! That's already on my list." One of the interesting things about it is that there are differences of opinion when it comes to interpreting it. One person I know thinks it's about a prostitute, and it's not. It's more about the addiction to the physical attraction to this woman, to the power she has over him.
It's probably kind of a dark relationship, not very functional, one of those where it's not working but the attraction keeps the people coming back.
“We didn't have nothing a car wouldn't haul
Guns and guitars that's about all
Didn't take long if we had to haul ass
Didn't take nothin' but the money for the gas…”
-- “Trailer Park Blues”
Jimmy Stewart, Charlie Crowe, Guy Clark
Jimmy Stewart came to country music from the inside-out. The son of a drifting picker, a man who found more reasons to feel alive moving from town-to-town and jamming with anyone who shared his love of singing and playing than living the standard 9-to-5, it made for an unconventional upbringing for the coal-eyed dobro/fiddle playing kid, who was busy learning Jerry Douglas licks off records.
“We used to say that my dad liked to ‘run the roads’. We would get in the car and drive around. We didn’t have a lot of money so driving around was what we did – as long as we had the gas,” recalls the chainsaw tenor with a laugh. “If we saw someone on their front porch we quite possibly could pull the car over to talk with them, rent from them, or pick with them. He was a real storyteller. We lived all over Louisiana, from Covington to Shreveport, New Orleans to Alexandria.
“And as soon as I was old enough, I started playing records over and over trying to learn dobro licks. We used to fight about it 'cause I'd be so busy trying to learn, I wouldn't be playing with him enough. But you know-I just had to know…”
Having to know paved the way for a gypsy's life on the fringes of bluegrass and country music. Jamming with a coterie of local musicians - as well as legendary picker Josh Graves - Stewart learned the life, pushed the songs and found that nothing torches a moment quite like the music when it's ablaze. It is that exponential combustion that ignites “Freeborn Man,” the dobro-steeped up-tempo declaration of the footloose nation, and infuses “Trailer Park Blues” with its definite sense of urgency.
“As soon as I walk up to the mic, there's always been this notion of 'Okay, here's my shot…',” says the unassuming player/singer/songwriter. “The fact that people are finally gonna get to hear me… that this is my shot… well, I'm determined to put it down.”
That flinty commitment to seizing the moment is the result of life between the lines and the occasional pick-up gigs. It is also what gives Stewart's songwriting its undeniable authenticity - whether the half-spoken, half sung recollection of living in an abandoned school bus on “School Bus,” written with Guy Clark, or the heartbreak mingle with a country song cure “Sleepin' With The Radio On,” which is a jaunty shuffle that not only blurs the line between romantic nightmare and classic songs but also trying to escape being conscious.
“For 10 years, from 1981 to 1991, I listened to the radio every night while I slept,” confesses Stewart. “I look back now and realize you can't sleep like that without all that music getting into your head and your dreams…” A true bluegrasser, Stewart spent his latter teen years playing in pick-up show bands in Branson while getting his mainstream country music baptism - literally - falling asleep to a transistor tuned to the country station.
“I can always remember where I lived when certain songs were on the radio, what grade, what rental house….and you know, there was an awful lot of good music out there I had never known about without it, based on what we were picking. Funny thing is, I think a lot of people have lived that way, too.”
While it was a long path from backyard jams, bluegrass festivals and miles driven from Branson to Nashville, the kid whose ability to pick like lightning just kept floating to the top. If conditions were often meager, there was nothing that would come between him and his music… eventually landing the slot as utility player with three-time Entertainers of the Year Brooks & Dunn.
“I’ve learned and experienced many things at B&D University,” jokes Stewart. “Seriously, I have been with one of the best acts in the business and have learned a lot over the last 12 years. Kix and Ronnie are amazing artists, songwriters and businessmen. My connection with them has connected me with the writers, pickers, producers and other key players that are needed to even get close to having a fair shot.”
Having signed a publishing deal with EMI Music, it wasn't long until old friends like Shawn Camp and Chris Stapleton were vying with Guy Clark, and roots rock icon Pat McLaughlin to write with the young man finding his way.
After two years of songwriting and showcasing while moonlighting with Brooks & Dunn, Stewart inked a recording deal with Warner Bros. Records. He hit the studio with legendary producers Scott Hendricks (Faith Hill, Brooks & Dunn) and Ronnie Dunn with additional cuts produced by Paul Worley (Dixie Chicks, Martina McBride).
Stewart’s forthcoming Warner Bros. Record release is a recklessly jubilant record; culling an album that was part bluegrass, part live picker, part old friend and part fantasy league. They captured the spark of what Stewart has lived. A remarkably unselfconscious set of sessions - featuring Brooks & Dunn vet/barroom scrapper Lou Toomey on electric guitar, studio monster Chad Cromwell, Blue Highway's Shawn Lane, Union Station's Barry Bales, upright bass player extraordinaire Glenn Worf, Ricky Skaggs/Patty Loveless' vet Mike Rojas and Steeldriver Chris Stapleton - most of the album went down live.
“I knew I wanted to play the dobro, to let that stand out - and luckily my producers recognized how aggressive it can be. Just like they knew how to let me get in the booth and not let me think too much. I was raised on Flatt & Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, even Jim & Jesse's bluegrass and my mother's Elvis records, those are people who sing hard, and live what they sing. It was an incredible experience.”
A kid who was raised on the notion that Jerry Douglas was a supernova, music was how you made your way through the world and there was always another place down the road to pick, he believed that the songs would deliver him to where he wanted to be…. Today, it appears his faith in himself and the music was well-placed.
“I've had a very interesting life… and I want to share it with people,” he offers. “I may have grown up in trailer parks and didn't finish school, but I have learned that self-motivation and hard work can take you anywhere.”
An old school hardcore country star in the making, Jimmy Stewart's got it all figured out. All the rest of the world has to do is catch up - and enjoy the notes flying when he decides it's time to play.
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