For a time, the Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Gary Stewart looked as though he were on his way to becoming one of the wittiest and most rocking voices in contemporary country. Stewart's 1974 recording Out of Hand was a formidable deadpan triumph, but by the end of the Seventies he had fallen victim to self-consciousness in his singing and writing, as well as some of the vices he documented in...

Country music is in a state of flux these days. On one hand, pop stars and pretenders like John Denver and Olivia Newton-John are garnering airplay, sales and awards, breaking Nashville's stranglehold on the market. On the other hand, a growing band of tradition-minded newcomers like Moe Bandy and Gary Stewart have invaded the airwaves and charts, ignoring Nashville's typical formulas and taking...