Tommy Stewart -

Tommy Stewart (born Nov. 19, 1939) is an American composer, arranger, and producer who released a 1976 jazz-funk album on Abraxas.

Background

He was born Thomas Wesley Stewart Jr. on November 19, 1939, in Gadsden, Alabama. His mother wrote songs and led a choir. At age ten, he joined a high-school marching band. During his teens, he studied under Birmingham bandmaster John T. “Fess” Whatley and Washington Junior High School band director Alvin “Stumpy” Robinson.

In 1956, Stewart played with Roy Hamilton. He attended Alabama State College in Montgomery, where he joined the Bama State Collegians, the campus dance band that paid his tuition. Stewart directed the Collegians during his college years and studied composition with John Duncan. He later studied jazz arranging at the Eastman School of Music.

From 1961 to 1963, Stewart taught at Fayette High School in Fayette County, Alabama. During school breaks in 1963, he performed with Willie Hightower, L.C. Cook, and Junior Parker. In 1969, Stewart moved to Atlanta and wrote band arrangements for Morris Brown College. He arranged local studio dates for Eula Cooper, the Mighty Hannibal, Sandy Gaye, and Langston-French Duo through Jessie Jones’s Tragar Records.

Stewart played in the 1971 road band of Johnnie Taylor and worked as chief arranger for the 1972 television program Nightlife South. In 1973, he wrote charts for the Spirit of Atlanta album The Burning of Atlanta and arranged sessions for John Edwards and Loleatta Holloway at GRC/Aware Records. Stewart toured as musical director with Johnnie Taylor on the Disco Lady tour before his Abraxas sessions.

Tommy Stewart

Tommy Stewart released his self-titled debut album in 1976 on Abraxas.

Stewart and Bill Wright wrote seven of the eight songs; Larry Tinsley wrote “Get Off Your Seats.” Stewart arranged the album for chant-led vocal refrains, bass-driven vamps, clipped guitar rhythms, and bright string overlays. He’s backed by Free Spirit: drummer Steve Milner, bassist Charles Terrell, keyboardist Moses Davis, and guitarists Richard Marks and Kenny Mimms. Stewart and Wright co-arranged the vocals with Pat Lewis.

“Fulton County Line” saunters through a mid-tempo strut, with the vocal line set against glossy orchestral replies. “Bump and Hustle Music” hustles on a simple bassline and percussion pattern, then locks Hot Buttered Soul’s overdubbed backing vocals into short refrain cycles. “Get Off Your Seats” claps through direct crowd-address chants. “Make Happy Music” brightens through unison-vocal strings, with the chorus fixed in a sweet upper register. “Riding High” glides through wah-brushed guitar figures and a high-sheen chorus.

A1. “Fulton County Line” (4:50)
A2. “Practice What You Preach” (4:55)
A3. “Bump and Hustle Music” (5:02)
A4. “Get Off Your Seats” (4:30)

B1. “Make Happy Music” (3:49)
B2. “Atlanta Get Down” (5:00)
B3. “Riding High” (5:20)
B4. “Disco Hop” (3:52)

Marlin McNichols, Tommy Stewart, and Bill Wright produced the album for Web Foot Productions. The recording took place at Sound Pit Studios in Atlanta and Ardent Studios in Memphis. Stewart worked in sequence on Has Arrived, the 1976 Soul International Records release by The Whole Darn Family.

Reece Wilson and Gordon Smith Creative Services designed the cover package. The front image places a heart-shaped peach above a black city silhouette, with smoke forms along the horizon.

Postlude

Tommy Stewart remained in Atlanta after the Abraxas album. From 1974 to 1985, he taught jazz at Morehouse College, where he also wrote band arrangements. In 1979, he taught “A Survey of Popular Music” at Georgia State University.

Stewart worked with Detroit producer Marlon McNichols on late-seventies Atlanta sessions for Final Approach and Cream De CoCo. The same partnership also recorded Tamiko Jones and Moses Davis. In 1977, Stewart arranged sessions for Luther Ingram and Johnny Baylor.

Stewart produced Martha High, a Salsoul singer whose 1979 self-titled album contains all but one song co-written by Stewart with Harold Daniels and Julian Chatman. Around the same period, he produced Ripple, the self-contained band behind the 1977 Salsoul album Sons of the Gods and the single “The Beat Goes On and On.” Former Archer High School students from Atlanta worked with Stewart in Southside Coalition.

Stewart returned to a leader credit with Tommy Stewart and His Orchestra, a 1980 Circle LP that lists George H. Buck as producer and Stewart as conductor. Circle issued Sil Austin + Tommy Stewart and His Orchestra in 1981, pairing saxophonist Sil Austin with an orchestra billed under Stewart.

Stewart arranged the 1981 Columbia album I Wanna Go Home by Major Lance. The Lance work continued with The Major’s Back, a 1983 Kat Family album that includes a Stewart string-arrangement credit.

Stewart also worked on early-eighties Atlanta studio albums by Hambone and Solar Source: the 1981 Salsoul LP Big Fat Juicy Fun and the 1981 AVI LP Now’s the Time. In 1983, he toured with The Tams, an Atlanta vocal group active on the Carolina beach-music circuit after sixties chart success.

Discography: