David Stewart: The Walking Cowboy Rides Again
David says that he wasn’t born into a musical family, but his parents did own a tavern in Bradenton, Florida that had a dance hall. The Village Barn was home to a lot of music and square dances. “I started playing when I was about 10 years old pretending that I was on the stage of the Opry. About the age of 13, I had an uncle that would take me down to a local tavern, sneak me in, and I’d play for the people in the afternoon. He’d put a tip boot out, but I think he got more of a cut than I did,” David chuckled. “I was exposed to music when I was a young child because there was music all around me, and I think that’s what got me to loving music.”
When David grew old enough to where he didn’t have to sneak into the club, he became the club’s house band and began opening acts for a lot of artists who came out from Nashville.
“I went to Nashville in the early ’70s and was trying to be an artist, but it just didn’t work out for me. Then I moved to Wyoming in ’77. In 1988, my wife and I were sitting at a truck stop one night. I was humming a song I wrote called ‘In the Wings of the Grand Ole Opry’ and my wife asked me what I would do to sing on the Grand Ole Opry. I told her ‘I’d walk to Nashville if I could sing on the Opry’, and she said, ‘what a great idea!’ So, I did that. It was a 1600-mile walk. I had no contact with the Opry at all. My whole deal was that I was going to walk there and ask them if I could play.
