Winford Lindsey "Wynn" Stewart (June 7, 1934 – July 17, 1985) was an American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
singer and songwriter. He was one of the progenitors of the Bakersfield sound. Although not a huge chart success, he was an inspiration to such artists as
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar "Buck" Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the frontman for The Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the ''Billboard'' country music chart. He pioneered what came ...
,
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential figures in country music, he was a central pioneer of the Bakersfield ...
and
Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain Lowe (born 24 March 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in Pub rock (United Kingdom), pub rock, power pop and New wave music, new wave,
Stewart was born in Morrisville, Missouri, United States, in 1934, during the Depression. He spent most of his childhood moving around the country with his
sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...
family. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Stewart spent a year working at KWTO in Springfield, Missouri. In 1948, he moved to California with his family. Stewart originally wanted to become a professional baseball player, but suffered from a hand disease and was also too short to play professional baseball. In high school, Stewart formed a band that played at clubs around California. He soon met
steel guitar
A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...
ist Ralph Mooney, who joined Stewart's band. The group's lineup consisted of guitarist Roy Nichols and bassist Bobby Austin.
In 1954, Stewart signed a recording contract with an independent record label called Intro Records. He released two singles on Intro. The first was called "I've Waited a Lifetime" and the second was "Strolling". Both failed to reach on the country music chart. His second single caught the attention of Skeets McDonald, one of Stewart's idols. He liked the song so much, he arranged an audition with
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...
for Stewart. By the summer of 1956, Stewart signed with Capitol. He soon recorded and released his first single from the label, "Waltz of the Angels", that same year. The song went to No. 14 on the country chart, and gave Stewart his first major hit. The song later became a duet hit for
George Jones
George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American Country music, country musician, singer, and songwriter. He achieved international fame for a long list of hit records, and is well known for his distinctive voice an ...
and Margie Singleton. However, Stewart did not stay with Capitol much longer as none of his other singles was gaining much success. His last single for Capitol (until his 1960s return) was called "I Wish I Could Stay the Same", released in September 1957.
Nightclub owner
Stewart was part owner of a
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, Nevada, nightclub called Nashville Nevada during the early 1960s. He performed there six nights a week and also hosted his own television show. A young
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential figures in country music, he was a central pioneer of the Bakersfield ...
sat in with the band while Stewart was out of town in 1962. Stewart returned early, was impressed with Haggard's performance, and hired him as his regular bass player. He wrote Haggard's first hit "Sing a Sad Song".
"Wynn's sound was what influenced Buck and me both," Haggard has said, "and in a strange twist of fate, his band was the heart of the old Frizzell band – Roy Nichols was part of the Lefty band, and he went to Wynn Stewart and ran into Ralph Mooney, who played the steel, and they were the basis of the modern West Coast sound."
Height of his career
With the help of songwriter
Harlan Howard
Harlan Perry Howard (September 8, 1927 – March 3, 2002) was an American songwriter, principally in country music. In a career spanning six decades, Howard is credited with writing more than 4,000 songs, over 100 of which reached country mus ...
, Stewart signed with Jackpot Records, a subsidiary label of Challenge Records, in 1958. He recorded a string of singles that were a mix of different styles, ranging from pop to
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre, it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western musi ...
. In 1959, he moved to the parent Challenge label and released a single called "Wishful Thinking". The song proved a breakthrough for Stewart when it reached No. 5 in 1960. Following the song's success, Stewart moved to
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, Nevada, where he hosted a local TV show and was part owner of a nightclub, The Nashville Nevada.
Stewart continued to have sizable hits, including the
Jan Howard
Jan Howard (born Lula Grace Johnson; March 13, 1929 – March 28, 2020) was an American author and country music singer and songwriter. As a singer, she placed 30 singles on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' Hot Country Songs, country song ...
duet called " Wrong Company", and "Big, Big Love", among others. Stewart moved back to the center of the Bakersfield sound, California, in 1965. He re-signed with Capitol.
Cliffie Stone
Clifford Gilpin Snyder (March 1, 1917 – January 17, 1998), professionally Cliffie Stone, was an American country singer, musician, record producer, music publisher, and radio and TV personality who was pivotal in the development of Californi ...
, who was an A & R director with Capitol introduced Wynn to a young arranger-guitarist Bill Aken (Zane Ashton) who would often over-dub unique guitar parts on Wynn's recordings. His first couple of singles for the label proved unsuccessful once again for Stewart, but his fifth single was a different story. "
It's Such a Pretty World Today
"It's Such a Pretty World Today" is a popular song released in 1967, written by songwriter Dale Noe.
Wynn Stewart version
The song was originally a country music single by singer Wynn Stewart. Although Stewart had previously hit the Top 40 on t ...
" was released in 1967 and became the biggest hit of his career. The song went to No. 1 on the country music chart and spent two weeks there. It was also the country music Song of the Year and a Gold record. Its follow-up, "Cause I Have You", was a Top 10 hit in 1967. Following his singles' success, Stewart recorded more soft, pop-friendly material, which gave Stewart his biggest hits into the 1970s.
By 1972, Stewart moved to
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic R ...
with "Paint Me a Rainbow" being his biggest hit for the label. He also briefly signed with
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over the course of its first two decades, starting from the release of its first recor ...
in 1974. Over the next three years, Stewart released singles but did not break the country Top 40. In 1975, he signed with
Playboy Records
Playboy Records was an American record label, based in Los Angeles, California, and a unit of Playboy Enterprises. Artists recording for the label included Al Wilson, Barbi Benton, Blue Ash, Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, The Weapons of Peac ...
and managed a Top 10 hit in 1976 called "After The Storm". Although he stayed with Playboy, he only had one other big hit, his version of "Sing a Sad Song", which went to No. 19 in 1977.
Later career and death
Stewart started his own label in 1978 called WIN. His first single, "Eyes as Big as Dallas", broke the Top 40. Although country music was changing in the late 1970s, moving to the smooth sounds of
country pop
Country pop (also known as urban cowboy or even urban country) is a fusion genre of country music and pop music that was developed by members of the country genre out of a desire to reach a larger, mainstream audience. Country pop music blends g ...
, he was not able to continue to achieve success, which was hampered by his alcoholism. In the early 1980s, Stewart quit performing, but a few years on and Stewart launched a comeback, with an extensive tour and a new album.
During the tour, Stewart suddenly died of a heart attack on July 17, 1985. Following Stewart's death, his song "Wait 'Til I Get My Hands on You" became a minor hit.
Commercials
In 2010,
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...
used Stewart's song "Another Day, Another Dollar" in an ad for the Jetta.
Kmart also used one of Wynn's songs, "It's Such a Pretty World Today", on a Blue light special commercial.
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...