Country singer Gary Stewart brought the spirit of honky tonk music back to country music in the 1970s. In contrast to the overly produced, slick music coming out of Nashville, Stewart’s sound recalled Music City’s 1950s roots.

I first became aware of Stewart’s music when I heard “She’s Actin’ Single I’m Drinkin’ Doubles” on TV after it came out. I loved the song and put it in the repertoire of the band I played in at the time. It was later that I discovered that Stewart started his career in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the county just north of where I lived. Soon after that, I saw him and his entourage at a local concert by another Florida musician I liked, Dickie Betts, and his band, Great Southern. Stewart and his friends sat up front, digging the show.

Although I’d gone to the Fort Pierce country bar where Stewart honed his sound, Frankie and Johnny’s, I regretfully never heard him. Decades passed. I lost track of Stewart’s music.

Then, through the magic of Facebook groups, I began talking with local folks who knew Stewart during his scufflin’ days. Many of the posts were priceless, and I realized we were documenting the history of a key 1970s country musician, one of the all-time greats in my opinion. Wanting to preserve this, I got permission from many posters to collect and publish their remembrances on my blog at the time, Words and Music. It went up in 2019.

I later replaced that blog site with my present one, Off the Page. In 2024, I published a deep dive into how Fort Pierce journalists followed Stewart’s rise from the start in a series of fascinating articles. If you’re a Stewart fan or curious about the role of local journalists in shaping the images of upcoming stars, read Gary Stewart: Reading his Remarkable Rise and Fall.

But all the old posts reverted to Word docs in a folder. But I decided it was time to dust off my Stewart post and give it another spin, hope you enjoy it!

Here’s the original post:

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The following thread is from a Facebook Group I belong to called Growing Up in Fort Pierce. The thread was in response to my question:

“Any memories of seeing the great honky-tonk musician Gary Stewart around town?”

Declared the “King of honky tonk” by Time magazine, Gary Stewart is best known for his hit “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” from his 1975 LP Out of Hand. Stewart was a founder of the outlaw country movement. His wild ways are the stuff of local legend and a theme of this thread.

Over a decade before the thread was spun on Facebook, Stewart committed suicide at his home in Fort Pierce, Florida. It was soon after his wife, Mary Lou, died in 2004. He had struggled with drugs and alcohol for years, and his demons finally chased him down. 

Stewart moved to Fort Pierce in the mid-1950s at age 12 and started out in music playing with local bands. The Florida music scene in the sixties and early seventies produced a handful of the era’s greatest musicians, including Tom Petty, Dickie Betts, and Greg and Duane Allman. Stewart was friends with Greg Allman and influenced by Southern rock.

In 1964, while playing at an Okeechobee, Florida honky-tonk called the Wagon Wheel, Stewart was spotted by legendary country singer Mel Tillis. He moved to Nashville, where he started his career as a songwriter and performer.   

But Stewart’s heart remained in Fort Pierce, where he returned often to crash with old friends and jam with the town’s gifted musicians.

In the thread, we hear from some of these friends and fellow musicians. Taken together, their comments and responses show the power of social media to spark and document group recollections of significant figures in music history. Digital storytelling is not unlike old-timers sitting around a potbelly stove swapping tales about local sinners and saints.     

Stewart himself was both a local sinner and saint. As one person recalled, “Gary did everything 110%, good or bad… anytime, anywhere.”

Here’s the thread, edited a little for clarity:

Don Armstrong: Any memories of seeing the great honky-tonk musician Gary Stewart around town?

Mike Jacobus: Yea . . . at my apartment at 3am 🙂

DA: What was he like?

MJ: @3am? LOL Gary was a great guy. He had a few demons but we all do. He loved to play music. Gary would stop by after the bars closed. Usually around 3am-ish. Bars closed at 2, give an hour or 2 for a trip to Sambos or Gary’s Greasy Spoon (Not the real name, which time has diminished memories of but well known, and not to be confused with Gary Stewart) The first time he stopped by to visit one of my room mates. I was rooming with 2 girls at the time. One of which had a script for “ludes”. After catching sight of one of my 4 guitars and Traynor amp in the corner, we played well past sunrise. My roommate got a little miffed at me after Gary would stop by on a regular basis to play and not to see her. Gary did everything 110%, good or bad . . . anytime anywhere.

Nancy Danny Ashburn: Seen him at the house all the time. Family.

DA: “She’s Acting Single” is one the best country songs of all time. What was he like as a person? Did he start out as a musician in Fort Pierce?

NDA: He was very talented; we have known the family since they moved to Fort Pierce from Kentucky. My son Royce is married to Shannon, his daughter. They still live in the family home. Gary’s wife Mary Lou was a good woman.

NDA: He is truly missed.

DA: He was a very special person. He had a sweet soul.

NDA: He did on occasion.

Terry Skidmore: He and his family lived around the corner from us. We hung out with Joey at the 29th St. Park.

NDA: Family’s still there.

Bob Melton: Plenty of memories. I worked with him for many years.

DA: I remember seeing him hanging out at local clubs. He was a striking figure, but I always wondered if he actually played here.

BM: He played in Ft Pierce a lot through the years. He moved there with his family from Kentucky when he was about 12 and was always singing and playing the guitar and piano.

BM: This was at the Green Gate in Ft Pierce:

Bernie Woodall: I wish I had been cool enough to simply knock on his door, across from the Little League fields and the Armory on Delaware Avenue. If I remember correctly. I heard he hosted members of the Allman Brothers at his parties. In our JCHS annual edited by Rita Bolin, Class of 1975, I was the “model” in the Music Bin ad at the back, and I chose his Out of Hand album to hold, which was current and near the top of the charts. And then I saw him on several occasions at the International House of Pancakes, ca. 1976-78, on US 1 north of the Pizza Hut. Gary wore a great Nashville star hat (think Dylan “Desire” album cover). He was with two pretty women at 3 a.m. in one of the booths. Several times I saw him like that. I wish I had had the guts just to say hello. I was 19-21, and he was in his 30s, which seemed so much older and forbidding, plus he was such a star. Great musician. Great lyricist.

Editor’s note: I was at the Music Bin just about every Friday checking out new albums. It was worth the 20-minute ride.

BM: Cool. He would have wanted you to say hello.

MJ: Bernie, you should have and could have.   

Steve Hansen: I remember the time I met Gary was in Kansas City. I was in a road band with Fred and Howard Folcarelli in 1974. We had been playing in Kansas City when Fred and Howard found out Gary was performing there with Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. Was a great show. We went backstage later and met them.

SH: Back when I played at Frankie and Johnnies [a Fort Pierce country music club], Gary came in a few times with Greg Allman, and a few times Gary came in and sat in with us. He’d play Fred Bogart’s piano and always break a few strings on it. Lol.

This ended the thread and one great conversation.

Contributors: Nancy Danny Ashburn, Steve Hansen, Dennis McMahon, Bob Melton, Terry Skidmore, and Bernie Woodall.

© 2019 Donald E. Armstrong, Jr. 

“She’s Actin’ Single I’m Drinkin’ Doubles”