Bob Melton, a former bandmate
of Gary Stewart and
now a musician in Ocala,
shared these memories of his
days with Gary Stewart.
MUSIC
It is hard to remember exactly
when I first got to know Gary.
We weren’t more than teenagers.
He was very much already into
music and I was, too, though I
was just more into country and
folk, and not as advanced as he
was, while he was into country
and rock ‘n roll.
In 1973, I was playing in the
band the Phoenix at Frankie &
Johnnie’s in Fort Pierce with Fly
Hornsby, Darrell Dawson, Fred Bogert, and Howard Folcarelli when
Gary started coming in to hear us regularly. It wasn’t long before we all
got to know each other real well and Gary started bringing his guitar
and amp in to play a couple of late sets with us after the dinner crowd
was through eating.
I started spending a lot of time at his house working out the twin
guitar parts on a lot of Allman Brothers songs, and he was really getting
into playing slide guitar. In fact, he was getting really good. We began
playing more and more Allman Brothers, southern rock, and country
rock at Frankie and Johnny’s and we were packing the place so tight
there were lines waiting outside to get in. The only problem was it was
not what management wanted. They wanted slick country, so when
they told us either Gary goes, or we all go we all went -- right down
the street to the Fort Pierce Pierce Hotel.
When I first started playing with Gary he didn’t even drink. When
we were at his house practicing guitar parts together and writing in
the early days, he was so excited about learning to play slide and so
inspired by what bands like the Allman Brothers were doing, he was
like a kid in a candy store. He was obsessed and couldn’t get enough.
He would really wear me out. He had so much energy he was electric,
and that is the way he was on stage back then, too. He literally played
and sang like his hair was on fire. I am not exaggerating a bit when I
say that back in the days of playing with him at the Fort Pierce Hotel
he was the most dynamic performer I have ever seen. He would totally
mesmerize the audience. There was no way to ignore the electricity
coming out of him when he took off on a slide guitar solo. And he got
very good at it.
We did some memorable shows at the Fort Pierce Hotel until after
Gary had signed with RCA later in 1973. When RCA sent him on the
road with Charlie Pride to replace Ronnie Milsap in 1974, our band
scattered. But as soon as RCA let Gary hire his own band after he had
a couple of hit records, he brought Darrel and me back in.
Gary was pretty frustrated with the music business even when I was
playing with him. RCA never let him do his music the way he wanted
to. When we started backing him up, all country backup bands wore
matching polyester suits with shiny boots and Elvis hairdos. He didn’t
want that and we didn’t either. We had long hair, wore jeans, and tennis
shoes or scruffy boots, nobody dressed alike and we played loud..
When it became known in Nashville that Gary was leaving Charlie
Pride’s show to strike out on his own, Country Music Magazine sent
their best writer to Fort Pierce for the details. His name escapes me now
after too many years, or beers, but Gary brought him out to hear us at
the Corner Bar, a honky tonk at Orange Avenue and Jenkins Road. The
place was packed to the rafters with cowboys. Gary got up and did a
few songs with us and brought down the house -- and this band did
not even have drums. It was a little different. Long haired country boys
with banjos, fiddles, flat-top guitars and mandolins playing the Beatles,
the Eagles, and Bill Monroe. In fact, in the article for the magazine, the
writer said we sounded like the “heretic sons of Bill Monroe.”
Gary hired an old friend of ours, Larry Munson, to play drums and
be the road manager.
Our banjo
player, Ralph Profetta,
was elected
to get a steel guitar
and at least learn
how to play the
intro to “She’s
Actin’ Single.” Our
very first road trip
was two shows out
in New Mexico and
Arizona around
Christmas of 1974.
That was certainly
a trip to remember.
We rented a
Winebago and
headed west. Our
first show was in
Farmington, New
Mexico, and the
next night we went
to Window Rock,
Ariz., to play at
the capital of the
Navajo Indian Nation.
From Indian
country we went to
Snowmass, Colo.,
without Gary to
play a few weeks
at a place called Fanny Hill’s Saloon. We went straight from there
to Nashville for a recording session with Gary that also served as a
chance for Jerry Bradley, who was the president of RCA, to meet us
and see if we were good enough to back up their artist.
It all went great. Ralph had not had time to learn the steel yet, so
Weldon Myric, one of the finest steel pickers in Nashville, came in
and did the sessions with us. We did five or six of Gary’s original songs
and those recordings are now classics, even though they were never
released on record. So we were approved, and became Gary’s first
backup band.
Gary was funny as hell. He would do some crazy things stone cold
sober. We were in a cafe out in west Texas one time eating lunch. It was
a home cooking place full of dusty cowboys, and our band was right in
the middle of the room. Gary could do bird calls and you couldn’t tell
where they were coming from. He had everyone in there looking for
birds. He kept that up and had everyone in there going nuts with his
jumping up and trying to catch the birds. Then after he had done that
for a while, he started crawling around the room on all fours going up
to tables and begging like a dog and whimpering for food.
Gary was generous, but very frugal in many ways, too. He came
from a dirt poor family and he knew the value of a dollar. Sometimes
he was very tight, but when he felt like it he would blow money like
it was nothing. We could not pass a junk or antique store along the
road that he didn’t make us stop the bus and he would find all kinds
of crazy things he would buy that we would have to climb over for the
rest of the trip. It was a pretty crazy ride, but I wouldn’t have missed
it for the world. He was very eccentric in so many ways it is hard to
count them all.
We went on to play many memorable shows. I played with him from
1973 until 1980 and did some occasional shows with him up until
about 1990. I made many surreal memories with him. It was quite an
honor to have lived through those days with Gary and the wonderful
and talented guys who we shared the bus and the stage with. I always
appreciate the chance to say good things about Gary. He was one of
the best friends I ever had and I will miss him forever.
22
’The most dynamic performer I have ever seen’
Gary Stewart’s backup band was comprised mostly
of people from Fort Pierce. In photograph are, from
top, Ralph Profetta (steel and banjo), Tommy Ray
Miller (guitar), Darrell Dawson (bass and vocals),
Gary at the bottom, then Bob Melton (guitar and
vocals), and in the center is John Whalen (guitar,
fiddle, mandolin, vocals).
Gary Stewart and Bob Melton play at
a gig at the Fort Pierce Hotel when
She’s Actin’ Single hit No. 1 on the
Billboard charts.