John Stewart is one of the greatest songwriters of the last 100 years.  This is not hyperbole or empty rhetoric, but simple truth. While this is not news to those familiar with his legacy, he has been unacknowledged for the body of work he created over five decades until his passing in January 19, 2008.

Many of his best songs, including the Monkees classic pop-rock hit, “Daydream Believer,” “July You’re a Woman,” and “Mother Country,” are becoming part of the Great American Songbook.  He scored Top 40 hit songs with “Gold,” “Lost Her in the Sun,” and “Midnight Wind.”  He gave Rosanne Cash one of her finest charted country hits with 1988’s “Runaway Train.”

Most significant to John Stewart’s credentials is his brush with the fateful times he lived through. He is engraved in American history through his friendship with John Kennedy and his brother Robert.  The historic brothers were fans during Stewart’s break-out success as banjo player and lead songwriter in The Kingston Trio. The group were guests to the White House and John campaigned for Robert Kennedy’s run for president in 1968.

John Stewart played his penultimate show on October 27^th 2007 at The Fret House in Covina. His final years found him playing for deeply appreciative fans & friends in intimate and historic venues like The Fret House, McCabe’s Guitar Store and Anderson’s 5^th Estate in Scottsdale, Arizona as well as high-profile house concerts like Jimmy Duke’s Dark Thirty in the San Diego area. After his passing from a stroke, it was discovered he was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s Disease.  But it didn’t show at The Fret House concert. That night, he was the same country-rock troubadour we had loved for all of those years.

On July 29^th, The Roadhouse Series will present A Tribute to John Stewart at The Fret House.

A return to a stage for the Roadhouse Series marks a heart-felt new beginning for the series.

One of the last great songs John wrote was inspired by his time at the Fret House and his friend’s home in Sierra Madre, California. His words reverberate with meaning as the Roadhouse Series moves into a new era, new beginnings, just as John Stewart did nearly 20 years ago at his Fret House shows when he wrote the following words:

Here come those songs once again
here comes that longing again.
Where roses in canyons
And night blooming jasmine still grow

The Roadhouse Series began at the now-closed Coffee Gallery Backstage, in 2017.  It was formed to allow a community of musicians, songwriters, actors, poets and storytellers, and audiences to pay tribute to great artists, genres, and movements in American music.  Past shows have included tributes to Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Bonnie Raitt, John Prine Motown Records, Sun Records, Bessie Smith, Rockabilly, Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Patsy Cline and Gram Parsons, Tom Waits Elvis, and Linda Ronstadt.

This John Stewart tribute show will include Tim Dismang, who shares a special musical and historical bond with John Stewart as his fan and friend. Tim performed and stepped into John’s role with the John Stewart Band at a 2015 show in San Diego.  During John’s lifetime, Tim participated in musical workshops with the singer-songwriter.       

This show will include many of the fine artists who have appeared in past Roadhouse shows including Kathy Woolsey, Randy Miller, Joel Bennett, Pat Nason, Donna Barnes-Roberts, Karman Jeanne, Fish Olmos, and Lorin Hart.

The band includes veteran players led by Barrett Tagliarino on lead guitar, Taras Prodaniuk on bass, and Jon Rygiewicz on drums.

So many seasons have gone by since John Stewart’s passing.  But, his songs have grown stronger, born from his love for life, his family, friends, fans, and his enduring portrait, sketched in song, of an unseen America.

Even though his breakthrough of fame came with joining the Kingston Trio, for so many fans it is his groundbreaking solo career that began in 1967 the album collaboration with his future wife, Buffy Ford, Signals Through the Glass, defined his vision. It is his second album, California Bloodlines, that left a lasting mark on American popular music and its view of the nation as a place of ordinary heroes.

John Stewart can without argument is one of the founders of the genre today known as Americana music.  The genre was once defined to this writer by cowboy singer-songwriter, Michael Martin Murphy, as music that is distinctly American.  Admittedly, this definition is a broad one, but in the context of John Stewart’s time, he created a sound that carried diverse ingredients of folk, country, rock, gospel, soul & jazz, his music was not exclusively defined by any of them. It was a sound of his own unencumbered by genre boundaries.

Just as distinctively, through his lyrics emerged a portrait of America’s people and culture that was shaped by his life experience. He was influenced by the Kennedy Camelot era, the writings of John Steinbeck, the art of Ansel Adams, and Andrew & Jamie Wyeth. His words drew on stories and characters that gave us a glimpse into an unseen America that lived and thrived through everyday obstacles, burdens, joys, triumphs, and tragedies.

This portrait found its foundation in his early formative friendship and campaign for Robert Kennedy during his 1968 quest for the presidency.  The heart of his songs echoed with the hope, glory, and tragic ending of those days in the summer of that influential year.  It was parallel to the completion of Signals Through the Glass and the genesis of California Bloodlines. His second album was produced by Nick Venet and recorded live in the studio in Nashville in 1969.  Neither album would meet with commercial success, but both have an influence that is still felt to this day.

John Stewart’s career during the singer-songwriter movement would find its zenith in the days when he toured with 1974’s Phoenix Concerts album. It was recorded in the Arizona town where Stewart had met with his greatest popular success to date and was again produced by Kingston Tio/Beach Boys innovator, Nick Venet. He put the same inspired energy he brought to California Bloodlines, hiring the best studio and live musicians available.   There was passionate fire to these shows. There was also a sense of pending success.  It seemed John Stewart would be rewarded with the kind of superstardom he was destined to and so deserved.

But it was not to be.

The years that followed found John struggling with record company contracts and sales that dwindled due to a lack of adequate promotion from the business end of the music world.  But John never stopped believing as wrote and recorded milestone albums. His fan base stayed intensely loyal to him. They even mounted a write-in campaign to get him signed to a recording contract with RSO Records.

Eventually, he would find his most popular success with the hit song, “Gold,” and the album, Bomb’s Away Dream Babies, produced by Kingston Trio fan, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac.   John would score more hits from his most commercially successful album, but, but the hoped-for lasting success didn’t come.

Eventually, his music and energy would find a home in live performances and independent recordings.  Most notably, perhaps his finest moment came in 1987 with the album, Punch the Big Guy which yielded some of the finest songs he ever wrote including “Botswana,” “Runaway Train,” and “Midnight of the World.”

In a recent interview, his friend, Greg Jorgenson, who lived in Sierra Madre during John Stewart’s final touring years told me a story about one of John’s now classic songs, “Jasmine.”

When John played at The Fret House, Greg hosted him as his guest in his home.  Greg said that John would drive down from Northern California to Sierra Madre.  As soon as he arrived at Greg’s home, nestled in the foothill community where the pavement ends and unpaved roads began, the two friends routinely walked downhill to the village for ice cream. This became their friendship ritual whenever John came to stay with his friend for his gig at The Fret House.

At the time, Jorgenson didn’t know, but John, who was a prolific songwriter, had not written a song in over a year. Sierra Madre is among the most beautiful village communities in Southern California. Greg and his wife carried on long conversations with John about the beauty of the area, especially in spring.   Greg mentioned the beauty of the roses in bloom in the canyons and his wife talked about the night-blooming Jasmine.

This conversation inspired something John to write again. It was the blossom of lyrics and melodies that began to grow in his heart and mind.  It led to one of John Stewart’s last great classic songs, “Jasmine,” which ended up on his final album, The Day the River Sang.  The album was born with the song at that moment in the Sierra Madre on ice-cream village walks, through roses in canyons, night-blooming jasmine, and true friendship.

In the end, John Stewart soared through his personal history in pursuit of the great American song.  But even as he pursued it, the songs and their truth possessed him. It was an endless cycle of holy art and real love.

I recommend giving a listen to John Stewart if you haven’t already. Even if you have, listen again.  Listen with a deep heart for the light he sheds for us all through song. His best music is available on streaming services.  Spending a few hours with his collection of songs and stories will once again bring them vibrantly to life in the imagination of anyone who listens. As John Stewart once wrote

“I’m believing even when I’m gone, maybe some lonesome picker will find some meaning in this song.”

John Stewart’s music represents the better angels of our American spirit. His vision of a new patriotism built on real humanity rather than empty slogans and political divisiveness can be found in his legacy of song. His spirit waits in the music for us to tap into that hope and beauty he gifted to us in the miracle of his uniquely American music.