Gary Stewart ~ An Empty Glass

Gary Stewart 5/28/1945 ~ 12/16/2003 Stewart was born in 1945 in the Letcher County, Kentucky town of Jenkins, the son of a coal miner, who moved his family down to the Florida coast when Gary was 12. There he learned to play guitar at the age of 17. Later, he met and married a woman named Mary Lou Taylor, to whom he stayed married for the rest of his life. He moved to Nashville and recorded a handful of memorable singles for Decca Records, while co-writing with fellow Floridian Bill Eldridge. They generated minor hits for the likes of Nat Stuckey, Jack Greene, Billy Walker and Hank Snow. The real catalyst for Stewart’s success was producer Roy Dea, the man who captured the hard-country side of Gary’s sound the best. Dea was a sort of father figure to Gary, and Stewart, a born delinquent, tried in vain to be a good son. Dea helped him secure a recording contract with RCA, although then-A&R man Jerry Bradley wouldn’t seal the deal until Gary agreed to cut his hair. Gary was thirty before he had a top 10 album of his own. His debut album called Out of Hand (1974) was a formidable deadpan triumph, but by the end of the Seventies he had fallen victim to self-consciousness in his singing and writing, as well as some of the vices he documented in his tough honky-tonk hits like Drinking Thing, She’s Acting Single and Out of Hand. During the following years there were more along the same lines such as Whiskey Trip, Brand New Whiskey, I Get Drunk and An Empty Glass. Just about all …
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Carl Smith, one of the most successful and distinctive country artists to emerge in the 1950’s, died Saturday (Jan. 16, 2010) at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, south of Nashville. He was 82. Carl was a dominate force in country music throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with 30 Top 10 hits. From his debut chart entry in 1951 through late 1955, he had 21 consecutive Top 10 singles. During his career, Carl scored 53 Top 20 hits, including five that went to No. 1. He specialized in pure honky-tonk and had a talent for singing smooth ballads, but rarely crossed over into the pop audience. Regardless, Carl was one of the most popular and best-known country singers of his era. He topped the charts with such classics as Let’s Live a Little (1951), Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way (1951), Are You Teasing Me (1952), Hey Joe (1953) Loose Talk (1954), Back Up Buddy (1954), Kisses Dont Lie (1955), There She Goes (1955) and Before I Met You (1956). At age 15, Carl started performing in a band called Kitty Dibble and Her Dude Ranch Ranglers. By age 17, he had learned to play the string bass and spent his summer vacation working at WROL-AM in Knoxville, Tennessee. After graduating from high school, he briefly served in the US Navy. Smith returned to WROL and played string bass for country singers Molly O’Day and Skeets Williamson. WSM radio in Nashville, Tennessee signed Smith to a contract, and he began working for the station and singing at the Grand Ole Opry. Carls easy manner …
Video Rating: 4 / 5