Steve WARINER Portrait of an Artist

here is an earnest power in Steve Wariner’s creative force. This is a gift. The understanding of who he is. But that earnestness is not to be confused with the routine, because Wariner’s music over the years has proven to be anything but the everyday, rather it is a reflection of his state of being — earnest in his need to create.

Into a career that has bridged five decades, he has been honored in most every corner of the musical world, for his work as a performer, musician and vocalist, and as a songwriter. Wariner is recognized by his peers across all the popular musical spectrum for his prowess. He has recorded twenty-one albums, earned fourteen No. 1 hits, which include thirty Top Ten singles, four Grammys, three gold records, four CMA awards, three ACM awards, a Christian Country Music Association award, and two TNN / Music City News awards. He

by Warren Denney

has been inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, and importantly, designated by Chet Atkins as a “Certified Guitar Player,” or CGP, one of only five in the world. And, there are more honors, too numerous to list.

His song “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” cowritten with Billy Kirsch, earned both CMA and ACM Song of the Year honors in 1998. Among his top compositions are Garth Brooks’ “Longneck Bottle,” Keith Urban’s “Where the Blacktop Ends,” and Clint Black’s “Nothin’ but the Taillights.” He has written songs recorded by Bill Anderson, Kenny Rogers, the Statler Brothers, Alabama, Conway Twitty, Don Williams, the Del McCoury Band, and others outside the country realm. But, even now, he says he’d do it for nothing.

“When I was young, my dad [Roy] had a band, and I always aspired to be like him,” Wariner said recently, from his home. “I wanted to play out with my dad. I want to get in on some of this. He had a regular job, but to me it was just a fire that you had. I couldn’t wait. We’d play as a kid. I’d play VFWs and American Legions with my dad, or a New Years show here or there — just local little things.

“He’d pay me a little money. But I didn’t even care. I would’ve done it for nothing anyway. It’s just a fire. It’s the same today.”

This is the earnestness, and the understanding of himself. Wariner is built to make music. He has to play. And, that creative force is not restricted to music alone — he has become known for his visual art, as well.

“It’s like my music,” Wariner said. “There’s so many parallels with art and music … I’m going to be doing this, whatever, whether I’m getting paid or not. It’s the same with my art. I’m going to be doing it because it’s just this innate thing I have in me. I mean, I actually sit here and tell [my wife] Caryn, ‘Well, I’m going to go out [to paint]. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going out there and put paint on something.’ I did today, I just came in. I’ve got paint all over my hands.

“I do that with a guitar. On some days I just go out and work in the studio, and I’ll see it there. I’m going to go work on my music and I’ll just have to write something. It’s just a burning thing. Jerry Reed told me once about being asked who he admired. He said ‘I don’t really follow anybody. All I do is just be myself, and I just go play. I just play what I think sounds cool and sounds good.’ I admire that. Just be me … He didn’t chase anything. You could listen to his records and tell that. He wasn’t chasing anybody. Everybody was chasing him.”

Wariner is referring to honesty. He trades in it. And, even though the landscape can be tricky, an artist will put his or her best work down only when being honest with themselves. It’s an absolute space.

“You don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “If you write a killer song, it’ll find its way to somebody, or if you record a great guitar part, or whatever. A lot of people are chasing stuff, rather than just being yourself. And by the way, Jeff Beck [who died in January] — there’s a guy who didn’t chase anybody. I got cold chills just now. He was so innovative and just unbelievably talented. Just a genius, man. This is what I’m talking about.

“I think about it a lot. [Art and music] is a circle, really. It’s all about expressing … I’m not an abstract person that just throws paint. But I was looking at my painting today and trying to make this really say something, speak to somebody with some power and some depth. I think about it, and I could be talking about music or art.

“That’s right-brain stuff, man. We’re all from that. So many musicians. Eric Clapton went to art school. It’s all connected. I was at Chet’s once, and he showed me some of Merle Travis’s artwork. He was an unbelievable artist — one of the most incredible cartoonists I’ve ever seen.”

“The guitar is what I use to reinvent myself,” he said. “If I go back and start learning something on guitar, then I’m applying it. I can’t really explain it. It just helps me think outside the box and reinvent things.”

Wariner was born in Noblesville, Indiana, and raised in Russell Springs, Kentucky. His family, in particular his father’s talent, musical perspective, and the way he lived his life, informed Wariner’s core sensibility at an early age.

“I feel really fortunate that I was raised in a family that was musical,” he said. “Especially my dad. I was so lucky that my dad and my uncles were so freaking talented. He was one of twelve kids, and they all played. Harmonicas. Fiddles. Guitars. It was just unbelievable …

“I remember going to this kid’s house, maybe when I was in the third or fourth grade. I remember looking around his house and realizing it was so neat. It’s sterile. I was looking around for all the guitars and fiddles, and stuff. And, it clicked that not every house was like mine. I really had thought everybody was like that — their families were all crazy and played music.”

Even then, he recognized who he was. His home, his environment, opened his world.

“I’m so grateful for that because my dad was so openminded,” Wariner said. “We would watch the Ozzie and Harriet TV show when I was a kid, and Ricky Nelson. My dad told me to check out James Burton, and it was the first time I ever heard a string being bent — like raised up and bent. Telecasters. Forget about it. Like, holy! And, my dad picked up on that. We would listen to records, and he’d point out Chet Atkins, or Paul Yandell. He’d play a Johnny Cash record, and point out what Luther Perkins was playing.

“My uncle Jimmy was a lot younger. He was more like an older brother, and he was so cool. He played twangy. He loved Waylon Jennings. He loved the West Coast and Merle Haggard and got me into Bakersfield. And, my dad listened to the Grand Ole Opry when we were kids. I got all the dose of that at an early age. And I loved it.

“That’s why it meant so much to me, being a member of the Opry. Man, it meant the world to me getting to play it, and still getting to play it, but with my dad being there when I was inducted. My mom and dad hanging out with Grandpa Jones and Chet Atkins. It was awesome. He got to live it through me, kind of.”

Even with all the musical underpinning of his youth, a life in music is never a guarantee. Chance presents. Risk is taken — or not. For Wariner, the chance presented came in the form of Dottie West. She heard him performing at the Nashville Country Club in Indianapolis and convinced him to play bass guitar in her road band. He was seventeen. Off he went, completing his high school work by correspondence, and receiving a higher education money couldn’t buy. West encouraged him to join the union. The gig lasted three years, and brought Wariner suddenly inside a deep Nashville community. Porter. Dolly. Jerry. Chet.

These were abstract names to him before, and now they were flesh and blood. And, in the early 1970s, Nashville was a different place. Flesh and blood was where you found it. He laughs, recalling those fundamental days in this town, and his first trip with his father and older brother to the city, and to Music Row.

“We drove to Nashville,” Wariner said. “We’d driven through once, but I’d never really been here. And it was Nashville in 1971. We’re driving around and there was a guy my dad knew whose nephew played guitar for Billy Walker, the Opry star. He lived out in Hendersonville. We had his number — and that’s all we had. We were just driving around Music Row. I didn’t even have my driver’s license. We pulled right into the parking lot at RCA, and thought we might see Chet. Studio B was on my right, and Studio A was straight ahead.

“I walked up the door at A to peek in. I opened it and Porter and Dolly are standing just inside the lounge taking a break. I mean. Mack McGaha is there. I thought they’d run me out, but they invited me in. I just shut the door real fast and got out of there! I told Porter about it later, and he loved it, and cracked up. But that was what it was like then. It was Dolly and Porter cutting one of their duet albums. And it was probably Chet, or Bob Ferguson producing.

“I drove down Music Row a couple days ago, and it hurt my heart, man. I’m not being negative. Time, it just moves on — it marches and evolves. We move on. But it just made me long some for the way it used to be. I loved the way it was. Back then it was more of a town than a city.”

And back then, with Dottie West, he plugged right into the life. She brought him to the Opry. He was on television. He found himself on records, notably on her hit with “Country Sunshine” in 1973. Her encouragement to get his affairs in order, get his union card, proved fortuitous.

“I’m a teenager,” he said. “ … I’m going to have to get my own little apartment. Suddenly, you’re thrown into that, and it’s the commerce part of the art. I love that art, but I don’t care about the commerce part so much. Just let me go play.”

And, play he did. He exuded confidence, in the ways that only the blissfully young can produce. He was being himself. Wariner first met Chet while he was touring in Europe with West. He was eighteen and the tour was the first time he’d ever flown on a plane. He was fighting a nasty cold, with running nose, the works. He met Atkins, who had joined them for the last leg of the tour, in London at Wembley Stadium, and

“I was already writing songs when I was about fifteen. Then, I started really trying to write songs. I played a few for Chet { later} , and he liked my writing. We cut some stuff early on.” though Wariner was starstruck and ill, it was the beginning of a well-documented relationship.

“I mean, I thought I was good back then,” Wariner said. But I looked around, and I knew there was so much talent here. I always thought I could do it. I really did. I had the confidence. I would listen to records, and think ‘I could sing that. I could do that.’ I really did have that confidence.

“Yeah. I was already writing songs when I was about fifteen. Then, I started really trying to write songs. I played a few for Chet [later], and he liked my writing. We cut some stuff early on. I would go to his house and play them … Chet was doing a home studio way before it was even a thing there. Nobody had home studios. He would push me to try anything.”

Wariner believes he and Chet bonded because of common connections in their backgrounds.

“Chet and I got along because we had the similar backgrounds — that Appalachia kind of upbringing — and you know we weren’t really alike, but I got him and he got me because we were from poor families … I could relate to him when we would talk about family. It was a camaraderie thing — a brothers-in-arms thing.

“But it was Paul Yandell who really made it [Chet] happen for me. I played on a session with him when I worked with Bob Luman. The first songs I had written that were ever recorded were songs that Bob took in the studio. It was 1976, and [Bob] asked me to play bass on the session. So, I find myself in the House of Cash being produced by Johnny Cash. Larry Londin was on drums and Paul Yandell was playing electric. Waylon Jennings came in and played some acoustic guitar … Paul heard my songs and said ‘Get me some songs.’ He took them to Chet. That’s how it really started.

“I told Chet I’d love to sign up with him and make a record at RCA. That would be a dream. He told me he was stepping away from producing, and I can’t believe I said this, and I didn’t really know him at this point, but I said ‘No, Chet. I want you to produce me. I want you to do it.’ He smiled, and took me in. He said he could cut a couple of songs. I guess it was dumb youth … I had some nerve, man, to say that, because it’s not my nature to be that way. Yeah, dumb youth.”

It worked, dumb youth notwithstanding. Now, almost fifty years later, Wariner continues the life for which he was made. He plays the Opry. He’s not touring much, but he is writing, always. He released a Christmas album in 2021. He paints.

“I’m just being creative,” he said. “I was asked the other day to produce an artist, and I’ll think about that — I’m just taking things in, weighing them out. I’m doing the stuff that’s making me smile. That’s what I do.”