Gary Stewart: I Am From the Honky-Tonks

Jimmy McDonough

Apr 2026 · Wolf+Salmon

About this ebook

In the mid-seventies, Gary Stewart’s crazed hits, including “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” and “Drinkin’ Thing,” rocketed him to the top of the charts, earning him the admiration of Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers, and Tanya Tucker. Within a few years, he had flamed out and all but vanished from the music scene. Until Jimmy McDonough barged his way into the spooky Florida double-wide Stewart was hiding out in, beginning a nearly forty-year obsession with the musician.
GARY STEWART: I AM FROM THE HONKY TONKS―the ninth and final biography from Jimmy McDonough, author of Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography and America’s greatest chronicler of the weird, the wild, and the wondrous―is the outrageous tale of a true country outlaw.
This is a story of sex, drugs, and honky-tonk, told in McDonough’s inimitable, two-fisted style, the unique combination of oral history, vivid prose, and personal experience. It’s an epic tale of a wild Kentucky family who surfed success and rearended disaster in drug-soaked, seventies Florida. At its core is the tempestuous, tragic love story of Gary Stewart and his wife, Mary Lou, that will leave you haunted long after you turn the last page.

About the author

Jimmy McDonough is a journalist living in the Pacific Northwest.