Spotlight Artist: Steve Wariner

This month’s Spotlight Artist is a multi-talented performer who has been neglected in recent years. Armed with a fine tenor voice, impressive guitar skills lauded by his peers, and no mean songwriting chops, Steve Wariner was one of the few artists to move successfully from mid 80s pop-country to the neo-traditional period, and across several major label deals.

Steve was born in Indiana on Christmas Day, 1954 (hence his seasonal middle name, Noel), and paid his dues playing in his father’s band. By the time he was 17 was working as Dottie West’s bass guitarist, and made his first appearance on record playing on her 1973 hit ‘Country Sunshine’. After three years with Dottie, Steve then worked with rockabilly-turned-country performer Bob Luman. Both sideman jobs helped him develop his performance skills and at just 21 he signed to RCA on a singles basis. The label was patient developing him, and it was another five years before he began to break through, during which time he also played bass guitar for guitar maestro Chet Atkins in the latter’s personal band. Atkins was later to name him one of a mere handful of musicians worthy of his own nickname CGP (Certified Guitar Picker).

The early 80s saw Steve’s first #1 hit single and a couple of modestly selling albums, before he moved to MCA in 1984. This was a canny move, as with MCA’s support, Steve became a mainstay of country radio, scoring a series of hits, many of them hitting the top of the chart. He won his first Grammy nomination at the same time for his hit duet with Glen Campbell, ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’. In 1991, he made another decisive move when he signed to Arista and released his first platinum-selling record, I Am Ready, perhaps his finest artistic achievement, which bridged the shift from 80s pop-country to more traditional sounds.

For some years Steve’s public persona had concentrated on his vocal prowess and, to a lesser extent, his songwriting, but during the Arista years, his instrumental gifts came once more to the fore. He was one of the artists selected to guest on fiddler extraordinaire Mark O’Connor’s New Nashville Cats album, which celebrated the instrumentalists of Nashville, and this earned him a shared Grammy for ‘Restless’, where he, Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs shared vocals as well as playing on the track. He has subsequently won Grammy’s for instrumental collaborations with Asleep At The Wheel and Brad Paisley. His final release for Arista was his own first instrumental album, No More Mr Nice Guy.

After his exit from Arista in 1996, Steve concentrated on songwriting for a while, penning hits for Garth Brooks (‘Longneck Bottle’) and Clint Black (‘Nothing But Taillights’) among others. Labelless, he even helped Anita Cochran to her only chart hit by duetting on ‘What If I Said’, which went all the way to #1. He was rewarded by his fourth major label deal, with Capitol, where he scored another brace of hit singles around the turn of the millennium.

The 21st century has been less successful commercially, but Steve is still active, releasing music on his own label, including another instrumental album, a tribute to his mentor Chet Atkins, in 2007. A third instrumental record is due out this month. He has also continued writing, and was responsible for Keith Urban’s 2001 hit ‘Where The Blacktop Ends’.

We hope to share some of the highlights of Steve’s career with you over the next month.