Gary Stewart’s Complete Life Story to Finally Be Told
Whether you revere him as the King of the Honky Tonks, or just remember him for his iconic country hits like “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles),” anyone who knows their way around a vintage country music record collection will tell you that Gary Stewart has to be perhaps the most underrated musician in country music history.
His influence was incredible. His top songs and albums were unforgettable. But he was always on the outside looking in, falling right after a big rise, and perfected the role of being his own worst enemy. He was a perennial underdog, who nonetheless persevered to leave a legacy some performers with many more hits and much more money would kill to have.
Many have labored to tell the story Gary Stewart in a way that respects and does justice to the compelling twists and turns he experienced over the years, including Saving Country Music, which featured him on Episode 15 of the Country History X podcast. But nobody has gone as deep, has gotten so intimate, has so fearlessly mined for the true essence of Gary Stewart as biographer Jimmy McDonough has.
Now after 40 years of obsessing over Stewart, speaking to him personally many times, visiting him in his hideaway doublewide in Florida, and just generally hanging out with the Honky Tonk King to get to the heart of what made Gary Stewart tick, Jimmy McDonough is finally ready to tell Gary’s unabridged story.
Along with his interviews with Stewart himself, McDonough also spoke to his wife, best friend, and life partner Mary Lou, numerous family members, multiple band members, producers, associates, drug dealers, along with fellow country stars who knew him well such as Tanya Tucker, Willie Nelson, Dickey Betts, Charley Pride, and songwriter Dean Dillon. Amassing 544 pages on Stewart, the book also includes many never seen before photos, including the one that adorns the cover taken by Gary’s brother Grandal.
For those who’ve obsessed over Gary Stewart over the years, this will be your encyclopedia, but one that’s not a dry recitation of facts. Gary Stewart was known for living his life like “the plane could crash tomorrow,” and that’s the same energy and attitude Jimmy McDonough brought to this work. After writing landmark biographies for Neil Young, Tammy Wynette, and others, he swears this is his final one.
Rumored for years, we now have the details and release date for Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky Tonks. Unfortunately though, it’s not right around the corner. The book won’t be released to the wide public in hardback, eBook, and Audiobook until March of 2026. However, publisher Wolf + Salmon is making a limited “Cadillac” Collector’s Edition available on November 10th, 2025 that will be limited to 250 signed and numbered copies.
With so many of the greats of country music, their legacies don’t diminish over time, they only grow stronger. Gary Stewart is one of those beneficiaries, and this new book will hopefully help cement that legacy even more into the future.
August 13, 2025 @ 8:20 am
This should be good!
Shakey was amazing (didn’t read the Tammy biography though).
August 13, 2025 @ 10:34 am
SO lookin’ forward to this book! Wish l could afford the Cadillac Edition. Thanks for getting this out there, Trig.
P.S. All of Jimmy McDonough’s music biographies are fantastic!
August 13, 2025 @ 10:50 am
Many years ago in a major Toronto newspaper one of his early albums was reviewed under the heading “Why Isn’t This Guy The Next Elvis”.
Hyperbolic but gives you an idea how respected he was.
Hyperbolic
August 13, 2025 @ 11:14 am
If you wanna know how pathetic the last days of Gary Stewart’s life was, read Jimmy’s already published article on him. Addicted to meth, living in a filthy trailer with the windows blacked out, spending days in bed and severely malnourished and ridden with bedsores. Yeah, it’s awfully dark stuff. Jimmy doesn’t hold back when he does a bio, however, his books most certainly are not dull, and he doesn’t candy coat the stories. I’m sure this book will be a fascinating and simultaneously uneasy read.
Stewart was a great singer though. Love his music.
August 13, 2025 @ 1:16 pm
Thanks for the heads-up. Even if I thought Stewart was a great singer and I loved his music, I can’t imagine I would have any interest in reading a blow-by-blow acount of him killing himself with meth in a filthy trailer before blowing his brains out. Or that I would feel the need to go further and commemorate it by buying a deluxe, numbered “limited editon” of the tome. (Cadillac should send a cease and desist letter to the writer and publisher of the opus about trying to tie it in to their name!)
In my bood the guy was an OK country singer with a few good cuts, but he sang with enough vibrato and vocal affectations to make him tiring beyond small doses.
August 13, 2025 @ 1:50 pm
Oh brother….
August 13, 2025 @ 4:24 pm
Luckyoldsun has been around here for a long time and is a valued reader/commenter. But he’s taken up the role of being the wet blanket on any article that reveres an old country music great that didn’t have twenty #1s on the charts.
August 13, 2025 @ 4:01 pm
Going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing you won’t be writing a competing biography and rushing it into print before next March.
August 13, 2025 @ 4:05 pm
AI…
August 13, 2025 @ 4:14 pm
Interesting, heck i didnt evrn know he was dead. I wasnt a big fan of his. Could be an interesting read.
August 13, 2025 @ 4:16 pm
Unless this book hit the top of the charts – it won’t – nobody will “revive” Gary. He’s passé, forgotten and forsaken.
Some will discover him now and then, of course, but no, he won’t become another Gram Parsons (he died too old and too late).
And I fear that the book will be a listing of hilarious stories both funny and morbide just for the sake of sensation.
Gary could be one hell of a singer if he cared to, but he seldom cared, and it became his undoing in the end, probably well deserved even. He wasted his talent on too much fun, and that sort of behaviour always leads to tragedy for everyone involved.
That said; I would gladly trade every debutant from the last 30 years or so for a sober, still touring Gary Stewart. When he was great, none of his peers could touch him.
August 13, 2025 @ 4:22 pm
Couldn’t disagree more, and the amount of interest this article has received esp. on social media really speaks to how Gary’s legacy only continues to grow. Gram Parsons is actually a really good comparison: Never super successful, short popular career, but extremely influential. And you’d be surprised how many younger listeners dig on Gary Stewart. He definitely has a strong cult following.
August 13, 2025 @ 9:45 pm
Time will tell, I guess. I will be more than happy to be proven wrong regarding Gary’s legacy.
August 13, 2025 @ 4:57 pm
Too Country for Rock and Roll. Too Rock and Roll for Country!!! Amazing man and singer. I was a kid when I heard his music from the local honktonk down the street from my home. I knew my dad was in there when I’d hear Out of hand and Whiskey trip
August 13, 2025 @ 5:00 pm
Interesting, I saw Cody Jinks last Friday and he said Gary Stewart was the inspiration behind his song “Put the Whiskey down”. That was the 1st time I had ever heard of him.
August 13, 2025 @ 5:35 pm
Gary Stewart was a one of a kind talent who’s life played out like a country song. I’m now 50 and remember discovering Gary’s music when I was in high school. Gary Stewart is one of the best to ever do it in my book. The feeling he sang with…THAT is country music. I’ve been looking forward to this book for many years. Hoping people continue to discover the music of the King of Honky Tonk for many years to come.
August 13, 2025 @ 7:46 pm
Anyone who puts down Gary’s music doesn’t know a damn thing about real Honky Tonkin. I’m sure the haters were at a Riley Green concert last week or jealous individuals like lucky ole sun. Long live the King from Fort Pierce!
August 14, 2025 @ 7:42 am
Amazing talent! Troubles , like all of us, but he had a gift of making you feel you were in The Honky Tonk with him , smoking cigarettes and watching desperate lives play out…R.I P. Gary
August 14, 2025 @ 10:03 am
The music business is never fair to us listeners.
During Gary’s (often superb) comeback during the early 90’s, the radio pushed subpar talent into our ears non-stop. Most of them hit the no. 1 spot.
Not Gary.
Lesson learned; talent means nothing, PR everything.
August 14, 2025 @ 12:43 pm
I wish I could edit… my typos and other grammatical errors thanks to big fingers vs. small letters/unstructured mind makes me appear as an even dumber – probably banjo-playing, toothless inbred – version of myself.
And that’s when I’m not lamenting the state of the world…
Oh well, it will be worse the older I get.
August 14, 2025 @ 12:19 am
A favorite pastime when living in Music Shitty was browsing the myriad record stores, with a regular stop being The Great Escape down on Charlotte. I hit a jackpot in there one time and scored 3 of ol’ Gary’s records. This was several years ago, and all three still spin on my turntable quite regularly.
Gary Stewart is one of my favorite singers no one seems to know. It’s always delightful when I’m playing his stuff at work and someone just stops and asks me, “Who IS this guy??” Moreso, when it’s one of the younger members of the crew.
Can’t wait to get my hands on this book! As always, Trig, thanks for all you do to champion the good stuff – past and present. And, for keeping Gary’s memory alive.
August 14, 2025 @ 5:46 am
With an Empty glass, and a last cigarette. It’s closing time, and i’m drunk again!!!!
RIP Mr. Stewart
August 14, 2025 @ 9:56 am
Call it what you want to, I call it quits.
He lived his songs quite literally, if nothing else.
A very gifted artist, unfortunally derailed by the usual bad decisions. I suppose he lived the life he wanted to live, after all.
I saw him live at a bar when I did my ranger chores at the Fort Benning in Georgia, ’96 or ’97, he was up there trying to hit the strings of a worn-out Les Paul copy, backed by a couple of (obviously) local amateurs. The music sucked big time, Gary sucked down shots of tequila and stumbled into every riser, amp and speaker on the stage quite often. He also suffered from a dry throat and a running nose…
But damn, he delivered some excellent vocals despite it all.
It’s sad to witness the decline of a great talent that never really flourished.
August 14, 2025 @ 9:47 am
Gary & I became close when he returned to his home in Eastern Kentucky for visits and performances. We had fun parties in my studio in Whitesburg. He was a generous fellow. He had more stage charisma than any performer I have ever witnessed and I’ve witnessed many greats.
Can’t wait to read the book. I hope his visits to his homeplace is covered.
August 14, 2025 @ 11:25 am
As someone who has been clean and sober since 1988 but who spent too many years drunk every night in dive bars, I can say that Gary sang the songs which chronicled my prior life in the bar rooms.
I’ll have to order this book.
He has always been one of my favorites.
August 14, 2025 @ 2:42 pm
Just coming in to say “Out of Hand” is one of the greatest country albums of all time. People on here putting Gary down acting like he wasn’t one of the all time great honky tonk vocalists is just insane to me. His “lesser” cuts still get the hairs up on my arms due to the unreal vocals.
August 14, 2025 @ 6:22 pm
And I would add “Steppin’ Out” and “Your Place Or Mine” to “Out Of Hand” as a Stewart trilogy of country music album greatness. God, I have worn those records out!
August 15, 2025 @ 3:16 pm
Mike, I agree with you. Those are my top 3 as well. So many classics. “Single Again”, “Stone Wall Around Your Heart”, “Memories Swim in Whiskey”, “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone”, “Easy People”, “She Sings Amazing Grace” and I could go on and on and on.
August 14, 2025 @ 8:13 pm
I’m with Ya Tyler…Out of Hand is a classic…
August 15, 2025 @ 7:36 am
I have played some of his albums a lot. He was unique. This should be an interesting biography.
August 16, 2025 @ 3:14 pm
A major talent like Stewart should have been in the Willie/Waylon/Possum/Hag/Pride/etc. echelon of Country studs,but I’m happy this doc has come out,though it delves into the sad portions of Stewart’s life.