Gary Stewart - Out Of Hand (1975)

By 1975, popular country music, like today, was oriented towards the general pop market and success in the Nashville system was measured by crossover success. Nashville producers had been pushing this more lush, orchestrated sound since the 1950’s to legitimize themselves and to steer away from the idea that country musicians were just plain Hillbillies. Also at this time, musicians such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, outcasts of the Nashville system, wanted to record music they wanted to make and have more creative control on what they worked on, and thus would motivate these outlaws to reshape the whole idea of country music. Regardless of all that, Nashville still had a slew of musicians and songwriters on the major labels that were releasing material, gaining varying amounts of attention.  One of these musicians was Gary Stewart.  Stewart had already been a Nashville songwriter, backing musician and outcast by 1973. RCA producer Roy Dea came across his demo tape and put him up to record an album. The result is 1975's "Out of Hand", a beer drenched, cigarette stained, honky tonk masterpiece.  

The first thing I notice is the sound of this album; No lush strings, nothing pop oriented, just barroom jukebox country music. There's almost southern rock thing going on as well, like on the song “Honky Tonkin’”. It’s not as heavy a rock sound as the Allman’s (who were friends of Stewart) or Lynyrd Skynyrd, but that usage of guitar and steel guitar to replicate Duane & Dicky duel guitar thing adds to it.  With that in mind, it melds together with Stewarts quiver in his voice. His voice rocks on the rockers and it adds another dimension to the heartbreak of the lyrics of the tearjerkers. The sound is what draws you in, but the songwriting is the real gem of this album. A thing to note about the songwriting is how bleak they lyrics truly are. Many of us think of a good drinking song as “let’s get tanked and go nuts”, but the true poetic side is the truly relatable. “Drinking Thing” ,for example, shows the idea of how lost one can get when someone leaves you,  trying to put the puzzle together of what happened and filling up this empty hole with glass after glass of booze. Is it bleak, yes, but it’s that grim reminder of what many of us do in these circumstances. Look, I’m not gonna sit here and say if this is a good thing to do or not, but many of us feel that this is the kind of escape we need, and it's the only answer to the question of “why did they leave”.

At the time of it's release, "Out of Hand" did really well chart wise, hitting number six on the Billboard Country Albums chart, and the singles "Drinking Thing", the title track, and "She's Acting Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)" hitting numbers ten, four and one respectively. Even famous critic Robert Christgau approved of the album, stating it's "the best regular issue country LP I've heard in about five years". It's a shame people don't talk about this album as much as they should, because it too laid the groundwork for what outlaw country would become, and did as much as albums recorded by Willie & Waylon.