MUSIC
18
never sell it.”
She remembers
the
jam sessions
at the house
with Gregg
Allman,
Dickey Betts
and Tanya
Tucker, who
visited the
home at times.
Stewart and
Tucker would
just “write
and write,
stay up all
night and just
write songs,”
Shannon said.
“It was very
different, but I
didn’t realize
it because I
was young,”
she said.
“He was on the road a lot, of course, but mom tried to
keep it as normal a house as possible.” When he’d come
home, he would hand out cash to buy groceries. Mary Lou
and Shannon would spend hours in Publix buying his
favorites, such as Hot Pockets and ice cream.
Tragically, Stewart’s son Joey committed suicide in the late
1980s. “That was really hard on all of us,” Shannon said. “I
don’t think my dad went on the road for many years.”
She remembers the happier times when Stewart played
music and stomped his foot in the living room while she was
trying to sleep or preparing for the next school day. “I’ve got
to get to school tomorrow,” she would say, and her father
would respond, “Why don’t you quit school, and I’ll buy
you a car.”
A young Shannon would go to school and classmates
would ask her what it was like, but she didn’t think it was
all that different a lifestyle.
“Now that I’m older I look back and wish I would have
cherished those moments more,” she said. “My dad was so
gifted in so many ways. I’m so upset with myself in listening
to the things he was trying to tell me. But when you’re in
your 20s, you don’t have time for parents. I regret it a lot, but
there were a lot of fun times.”
Many of the memories are contained in videos she often
plays.
“I make myself sit down and watch it. I get star-struck. He
was an angel. Nobody had that grit sound like him.”
She’ll be stopped at a red light and hear An Empty Glass
coming from a nearby car. “People still have that hunger for
his music.”
Those memories come alive around Memorial Day each
year in Fort Pierce when a concert is held to commemorate
Stewart’s birthday on May 28. The turnouts are huge. Another
is scheduled for this May at Little Jim Bridge to show
how Gary Stewart is as big today as when he was alive.
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Beer bottle cozies at the Little Jim Bridge still celebrate
the timesless music of Gary Stewart.
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