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| For purposes of pilgrimage... |
The Hit
When I heard B. W. Stevenson’s “My Maria” for the first time - and that would have been this week - I didn’t quite know how to read it. It has a whiff of country to it, especially in the vocal phrasing, but the rest of it - from the basic rhythm to a mini-chorus singing the second half of the verses to the Laurel-Canyon-esque strains in the rhythm guitar - sounds more like the era’s pop-rock. It left me wondering where B. W. Stevenson would go on the rest of his fair-sized catalog.
I couldn’t find any particularly great stories about either the song or the circumstances of its recording. A short history in the Oakcliff Advocate gives a little more background, at least, mostly quotes and memories. Most come from Daniel Moore, the guy who co-wrote the song with Stevenson - or, more accurately, the guy who brought a song he’d been working on for two years to Stevenson. As Moore relates, Stevenson only needed about 15 minutes to fine-tune the song into the Top 10 hit it ultimately became. The same article notes how people just assumed Stevenson wrote another song - one was titled “Shambala” - when he didn’t have much to do with it. Here’s Moore on that:
“’I busted him for taking credit for writing “Shambala.” He had this big grin on his face and said, “I never said that I wrote it,” Moore told [radio DJ Robynn] James. “Then his grin got bigger, and he said, ‘But I also never said that I didn’t write it.’”
The story that article tells about “Shambala” arguably gets closer to the story of B. W. Stevenson’s career…
The Rest of the Story
“I do have several good ‘war stories’ about chuck. I'll say this all the time he was in the Air Force he kept saying he was going to make it. He said it was like a roller coaster. He's been going up hill so long that the once he reaches the top it will be smooth sailing.”
I found that quote on a memorial page that a big B. W. Stevenson fan posted to carry on his memory. It comes from a guy named Phil Patton, a nobody in terms of the music business, just an old friend of Stevenson’s. That page mostly contains recollections of fans about seeing Stevenson at various Texas venues back in the 1970s and 1980s, plus the odd interaction. Instead of besotted fandom some musicians get, it’s a modest little tribute and probably nicer for it. Stevenson made a decent career for himself, but it doesn’t look like he ever really stopped going up hill.
He was born Louis Charles Stevenson in Dallas, Texas in 1949. He added the “B. W.” later, which stood for “Buckwheat.” Stevenson started performing while in high school, with a coffeehouse in a Presbyterian Church for a venue. (I think, here’s the exact quote from a high school buddy: “I used to hear him sing every Saturday night at a little coffee house in Oak Cliff in a Presbyterian church.”). As noted above (Phil Patton), he joined the Air Force for a time, but he always had heart and mind set on show business. When he finally got around to working toward that goal, Stevenson took a tricky path/genre: progressive country.
Progressive Country was an early 70s off-shoot of country that (arguably) split the difference between the produced, popular country of Nashville and the rock-influenced Bakersfield, CA sound. Wikipedia’spost on the sub-genre names Willie Nelson as a flag-bearer, but it frames “the movement” as made of up of songwriters who’d had some success writing for others trying to write their own material and build their own careers. It also featured an openness to mass pop culture: “A new generation of country artists emerged, influenced by contemporary rock music, singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, and the liberal politics of the 1960s counterculture.”
The Web doesn’t offer up a song or a moment that changed Stevenson’s life; he comes off as a working musician, just one that squeezed out a hit in 1973. He scored a few more minor hits for himself - e.g., “River of Love” (#53) and “Down to the Station” (#82) - but what happened with “Shambala” that feels like the heart of his story. As noted above, Moore wrote it and passed it on Stevenson for the album “My Maria.” Stevenson released it as a single in the spring of 1973…only to have Three Dog Night release their version of it one week later. Per the Oakcliff Advocate, Three Dog Night’s version stayed in the Top 40 the entire summer. Stevenson’s version, meanwhile, stalled in its shadow at #66.
That became something of a recurring theme. For instance, Stevenson recorded an episode of Austin City Limits in October 1974 that was slated to become the pilot, only the audio didn’t come out. The producers taped a show with Willie Nelson the following night, and that wound up being the pilot instead. When Brooks & Dunn released a version of “My Maria” in 1996, that one topped the country charts for three weeks. In both cases, I'd take Stevenson's versions of both to a desert island over the others.
Stevenson never saw much of the brightest spotlights, but he did manage to churn out albums at a steady clip - e.g., a 1972 eponymous debut, Lead Free the same year, My Maria in 1973, and Calabasas in 1974. His discography on Wikipedia shows a couple others that I haven’t heard - 1975’s We Be Sailin’ and 1977’s Lost Feeling - but Spotify didn’t have those at time of writing. It did have his 1980 release, Lifeline, but that’s Christian contemporary, a genre I’m generally allergic to (no offense, you do you, etc. that’s just how I roll). The Oakcliff Advocate notes he put in plenty of time as a session musician and he did songwriting for others - e.g., Brownsville Junction’s “Hey Little Girl” (a rock number, btw, that borrows from "Hand Jive") among them. For all the work he put in, it’s possible his genre-straddling sound limited his options, or at least that’s the Oakcliff Advocate’s read on it: “His folk/country/rock sound didn’t fit easily into a music industry category at the time, and record companies found him hard to market.”
Stevenson still made it as a musician, even if he didn’t make it as a star. He passed at the too-young age of 38 in 1988 when he picked up a staph infection after surgery on a heart valve, but he’s very well regarded and remembered by just about everyone he came in contact with; any of us should be so lucky as to have something like his memorial page after we go. Better still, he remains a fixture in one small corner of Texas, specifically, a place called Poor David’s Pub in Dallas, which hosts an annual songwriting contest in B. W. Stevenson’s honor every year. And look at that, it’s coming up: May 12, this year.
About the Sampler
Because B. W. Stevenson put out decent music, he delivers a decent sampler. Of the 15 songs selected, I unintentionally over-represented My Maria with five songs - “My Maria” and “Shambala,” but also a pair of lively numbers in “I Got to Boogie” and “Grab On Hold of My Soul,” and a song-as-metaphor, “A Good Love Is Like a Good Song” - and Calabasas with four songs - “Look for the Light,” “Little Bit of Understanding,” “(Livin’ It) Day by Day" (intro sounds like Santana), and a southern rocker called “Dry Land.” His genre-crossing tendencies might not have worked for the industry, but it worked for me. It’s still present, if less evident, on Lead Free - repped on the sampler by the somber “My Feet Are so Weary,” the shuffling funk of “Jackson,” and “Maybe Mexico,” which splits the difference between them. People looking for his “folk” material would do best to check out his debut album, which features songs like “Long Way to Go,” “Highway One,” and the sad and pretty, “Wasted Too Much Time.”
You’ll hear a strong, flexible voice in all the above, and a very real comfort with blending different sounds. B. W. Stevenson had something, even if the industry suits didn’t know what to do with it.
When I heard B. W. Stevenson’s “My Maria” for the first time - and that would have been this week - I didn’t quite know how to read it. It has a whiff of country to it, especially in the vocal phrasing, but the rest of it - from the basic rhythm to a mini-chorus singing the second half of the verses to the Laurel-Canyon-esque strains in the rhythm guitar - sounds more like the era’s pop-rock. It left me wondering where B. W. Stevenson would go on the rest of his fair-sized catalog.
I couldn’t find any particularly great stories about either the song or the circumstances of its recording. A short history in the Oakcliff Advocate gives a little more background, at least, mostly quotes and memories. Most come from Daniel Moore, the guy who co-wrote the song with Stevenson - or, more accurately, the guy who brought a song he’d been working on for two years to Stevenson. As Moore relates, Stevenson only needed about 15 minutes to fine-tune the song into the Top 10 hit it ultimately became. The same article notes how people just assumed Stevenson wrote another song - one was titled “Shambala” - when he didn’t have much to do with it. Here’s Moore on that:
“’I busted him for taking credit for writing “Shambala.” He had this big grin on his face and said, “I never said that I wrote it,” Moore told [radio DJ Robynn] James. “Then his grin got bigger, and he said, ‘But I also never said that I didn’t write it.’”
The story that article tells about “Shambala” arguably gets closer to the story of B. W. Stevenson’s career…
The Rest of the Story
“I do have several good ‘war stories’ about chuck. I'll say this all the time he was in the Air Force he kept saying he was going to make it. He said it was like a roller coaster. He's been going up hill so long that the once he reaches the top it will be smooth sailing.”
I found that quote on a memorial page that a big B. W. Stevenson fan posted to carry on his memory. It comes from a guy named Phil Patton, a nobody in terms of the music business, just an old friend of Stevenson’s. That page mostly contains recollections of fans about seeing Stevenson at various Texas venues back in the 1970s and 1980s, plus the odd interaction. Instead of besotted fandom some musicians get, it’s a modest little tribute and probably nicer for it. Stevenson made a decent career for himself, but it doesn’t look like he ever really stopped going up hill.
He was born Louis Charles Stevenson in Dallas, Texas in 1949. He added the “B. W.” later, which stood for “Buckwheat.” Stevenson started performing while in high school, with a coffeehouse in a Presbyterian Church for a venue. (I think, here’s the exact quote from a high school buddy: “I used to hear him sing every Saturday night at a little coffee house in Oak Cliff in a Presbyterian church.”). As noted above (Phil Patton), he joined the Air Force for a time, but he always had heart and mind set on show business. When he finally got around to working toward that goal, Stevenson took a tricky path/genre: progressive country.
Progressive Country was an early 70s off-shoot of country that (arguably) split the difference between the produced, popular country of Nashville and the rock-influenced Bakersfield, CA sound. Wikipedia’spost on the sub-genre names Willie Nelson as a flag-bearer, but it frames “the movement” as made of up of songwriters who’d had some success writing for others trying to write their own material and build their own careers. It also featured an openness to mass pop culture: “A new generation of country artists emerged, influenced by contemporary rock music, singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, and the liberal politics of the 1960s counterculture.”
The Web doesn’t offer up a song or a moment that changed Stevenson’s life; he comes off as a working musician, just one that squeezed out a hit in 1973. He scored a few more minor hits for himself - e.g., “River of Love” (#53) and “Down to the Station” (#82) - but what happened with “Shambala” that feels like the heart of his story. As noted above, Moore wrote it and passed it on Stevenson for the album “My Maria.” Stevenson released it as a single in the spring of 1973…only to have Three Dog Night release their version of it one week later. Per the Oakcliff Advocate, Three Dog Night’s version stayed in the Top 40 the entire summer. Stevenson’s version, meanwhile, stalled in its shadow at #66.
That became something of a recurring theme. For instance, Stevenson recorded an episode of Austin City Limits in October 1974 that was slated to become the pilot, only the audio didn’t come out. The producers taped a show with Willie Nelson the following night, and that wound up being the pilot instead. When Brooks & Dunn released a version of “My Maria” in 1996, that one topped the country charts for three weeks. In both cases, I'd take Stevenson's versions of both to a desert island over the others.
Stevenson never saw much of the brightest spotlights, but he did manage to churn out albums at a steady clip - e.g., a 1972 eponymous debut, Lead Free the same year, My Maria in 1973, and Calabasas in 1974. His discography on Wikipedia shows a couple others that I haven’t heard - 1975’s We Be Sailin’ and 1977’s Lost Feeling - but Spotify didn’t have those at time of writing. It did have his 1980 release, Lifeline, but that’s Christian contemporary, a genre I’m generally allergic to (no offense, you do you, etc. that’s just how I roll). The Oakcliff Advocate notes he put in plenty of time as a session musician and he did songwriting for others - e.g., Brownsville Junction’s “Hey Little Girl” (a rock number, btw, that borrows from "Hand Jive") among them. For all the work he put in, it’s possible his genre-straddling sound limited his options, or at least that’s the Oakcliff Advocate’s read on it: “His folk/country/rock sound didn’t fit easily into a music industry category at the time, and record companies found him hard to market.”
Stevenson still made it as a musician, even if he didn’t make it as a star. He passed at the too-young age of 38 in 1988 when he picked up a staph infection after surgery on a heart valve, but he’s very well regarded and remembered by just about everyone he came in contact with; any of us should be so lucky as to have something like his memorial page after we go. Better still, he remains a fixture in one small corner of Texas, specifically, a place called Poor David’s Pub in Dallas, which hosts an annual songwriting contest in B. W. Stevenson’s honor every year. And look at that, it’s coming up: May 12, this year.
About the Sampler
Because B. W. Stevenson put out decent music, he delivers a decent sampler. Of the 15 songs selected, I unintentionally over-represented My Maria with five songs - “My Maria” and “Shambala,” but also a pair of lively numbers in “I Got to Boogie” and “Grab On Hold of My Soul,” and a song-as-metaphor, “A Good Love Is Like a Good Song” - and Calabasas with four songs - “Look for the Light,” “Little Bit of Understanding,” “(Livin’ It) Day by Day" (intro sounds like Santana), and a southern rocker called “Dry Land.” His genre-crossing tendencies might not have worked for the industry, but it worked for me. It’s still present, if less evident, on Lead Free - repped on the sampler by the somber “My Feet Are so Weary,” the shuffling funk of “Jackson,” and “Maybe Mexico,” which splits the difference between them. People looking for his “folk” material would do best to check out his debut album, which features songs like “Long Way to Go,” “Highway One,” and the sad and pretty, “Wasted Too Much Time.”
You’ll hear a strong, flexible voice in all the above, and a very real comfort with blending different sounds. B. W. Stevenson had something, even if the industry suits didn’t know what to do with it.
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