Best-kept secret, Stevie Tombstone, is a quintessential troubadour, a veteran musician who crafts powerful folk songs tinged with classic country and vintage blues influences.
There are many different species of the Music Artist. Various combinations of singers, songwriters and entertainers. But it’s the ones that wear their art that get to us the most. The ones that don’t know how not to tell the truth in their music and reveal the raw and ragged triumphs that in the end are more beautiful because of the honesty of the struggle. These are the Artists that get in our bones and shake loose our demons by slaying their own with chords and words. Artists like Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin…and Stevie Tombstone." Outlaw Magazine
Hand-To-Hand Troubador
Aaron Irons / Published On February 28, 2023
Stevie Tombstone’s saga canopies like a rock n’ roll oak, the kind with wild, ever-searching roots that tangle and gnarl above the earth. Career-wise, his boxset would be monstrous, a cornucopia of lost highway narratives hauled from Georgia to Texas to California to New York and all points in between, shredding rockabilly gospel and living the troubadour’s lovely curse one song at a time.
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After a chance meeting with Roy Acuff, Stevie (then a young man) was certain he would always be a musician. Georgia born relation of the legendary fiddler, Clayton McMichen, Stevie immersed himself in the world of rock and the underground music scene of the 80s in Atlanta, but never lost the twang of his childhood. Almost three decades later he has become an accomplished performer, songwriter and guitarist, as well as an integral the Atlanta and Austin Music Scenes at various points in time. He now hangs his hat in Western North Carolina.
In addition to his published works with his 1980s swampabilly band, The Tombstones, Stevie has released five solo albums and half a dozen music videos. The Tombstones song, Nobody, became a college radio anthem. The roots punk song about the Carolina Lights and was later recorded by rock icon Stiv Bator.
Tombstone's debut full length release, 730 AM, featured performances by members of Wilco, Jason and the Scorchers, The Bad Livers, and The Georgia Satellites, and offered tracks that peaked on the Satellite Radio charts. After several comps and EPs, his 2011 release, Greenwood, reintroduced Stevie to Americana and folk listeners with the autobiographical tale of his journey to Greenwood to mark the grave of then unhonored Robert Johnson.
Over the years, Tombstone’s bandmates and co-conspirators have been a veritable who's who of underground and nationally recognized players. Priding himself in his ability to cross genres, he has also had the honor of sharing the bill with the likes of Leon Russell, The Stray Cats, Greg Allman, Willie Nelson, Drive By Truckers, Marshall Tucker Band, Johnny Bush, and The Ramones and the list goes on.
In addition to producing and writing for other artists, Stevie still maintains a hardcore troubadour outlook, enjoying a grassroots following that's kept him on the trail for the last three decades.