Fred Stewart

On a hot mid-summer day in 1935 the fabled stork got tired and dropped me off at a little town called Erwin, Tennessee, nestled between the great Unaka Mountains to the south and the mighty Nolichucky River to the north. In years to come that area would be called the Valley Beautiful.

When I was 6 years old we moved to the family farm. Attending elementary and high school was a memorable experience which has since prompted me to write a few songs for HillTop including MY SWEET LORETTA JONES and HER TENDER YEARS. The G.I. Bill helped finance my college years at East Tennessee State University where I got my BS degree in Sociology and a MA degree in Psychology. The college experience honed skills that I later used when I became involved in politics, real estate and various other business ventures. I am also an inventor and designer of bio-physical instruments used to detect rare earth metals. I’m an author of many books and lastly, a songwriter.

Along the way the good Lord blessed me with my lovely wife who is the center of my universe, 2 wonderful children and adorable grand children. I know now why they call them grand. I’ve become a relic of the mountains where I took root, proudly served my country and raised my family in what must be God’s own vision of Paradise. The mountains are so high they appear to touch the azure blue sky.

I recall listening to the Country Music Greats on the Grande Ole Opry from a battery-powered radio. We didn’t have electricity in those days. The early greats were Hank Thompson, Kitty Wells, Jim Reeves, Little Jimmy Dickens, Grand-Pa Jones and others too numerous to mention. I remember as a small boy relatives would come to visit and bring their string instruments and re-arrange the modest furniture in our small living room for dancing and playing the old country and blue-grass songs. They didn’t know one musical note from another; they just played by ear, but it sounded great. They had a natural talent known to the original Tennessee music makers who loved music and life and knew how to get the most out of both.

The late, great Minnie Pearl, star of the long running and still syndicated HEE-HAW TV SHOW would play the piano and sing a few chorus’s and as the song concluded Minnie would look up and say, “we’re through playin’ now!” I guess we’ll all echo Minnie someday, but until then, let’s Make It Country!

May God Bless…