ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN.
SOURCE: JIM PATTERSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two guys meet in a bar, one a self-pitying soul destroyed by divorce and the other married but nagged by restlessness.
By the end of the song ``My Life'' on Keith Stegall's exemplary new album, ``Passages,'' the married guy sits in the driveway of his home, thankful for his life.
Stegall, 41, a hit songwriter, producer and music industry executive, has built an album around that ``gnawing in the gut'' guys of a certain age feel.
``I was both guys in the song,'' Stegall said. ``There is a cumulative thing that happens where all the factors hit you at once and you go, `I haven't done what I wanted to do, and I'm not getting any younger.'
``And that whole thing nailed me to the wall, you know?''
Stegall is a successful man by any measure. Son of country singer Johnny Horton's (``The Battle of New Orleans'') steel guitarist, Stegall produces superstar Alan Jackson's records and played an important role in the early career of Randy Travis.
His long list of songwriting hits includes ``We're in This Love Together'' for Al Jarreau, and Jackson's ``Don't Rock the Jukebox'' and ``Dallas.'' Johnny Mathis, George Strait, Reba McEntire, The Commodores, George Jones and Kenny Rogers have all recorded Stegall compositions.
He is a vice president at Mercury Records in Nashville, home of Terri Clark, Shania Twain and Kim Richey.
He's long been happily married to his wife, Rita, and they have a son and twin daughters. All that to his credit, and he still has a song like ``Middle-Aged Man'' in him:
``And sometimes I think I'm going crazy,
that the train's jumped the track.
'Cause I think about leavin', and never lookin' back.
And the mother of my children, tries to understand.
She says you ain't crazy, just a middle-aged man.''
``I got up in the middle of the night and wrote that song at about 2 in the morning,'' Stegall said. ``That became the focal point for the record and a bunch of other stuff began to stack around it.''
In the decade or so since he abandoned a then-anemic recording career, Stegall and Jackson found a way to make crisp records that are both satisfying personally and catch the ear of radio programmers.
``The production was working, the songwriting was working,'' Stegall said.
``I did that and I did that and I did that to the point that the desire and the fear of the death of that dream that I'd had to always make a record that I really wanted to make got so big that I couldn't deny it anymore.''
He was cutting back his schedule with that goal in mind when Mercury Records chief Luke Lewis started courting Stegall to be his chief executive for recruiting artists.
Stegall turned him down, saying his own record had to be his priority. ``Then finally he said, `Let's figure a way to help each other out. I need someone to put some vision together for the label, put together some artists, and to get a foundation there so that we can be competitive.'
``He said, `If you help me do that, you make your record.'''
Things have been purring along at Mercury since Stegall's arrival. He has brought along a diverse roster that includes such old-timers as The Statler Brothers and Tom T. Hall, solid winners like Kathy Mattea and Billy Ray Cyrus, and Stegall proteges like Clark and Richey.
Twain has become massively successful, a particular inspiration to Stegall because she has yet to tour. That gave Stegall faith that he, too, could put out a successful album without spending a lot of time on the road promoting it.
``I mean it is crazy and I am stretched pretty thin if you look at it, but it's really been a blast.''
And if this middle-aged man's angst translates into chart hits, it will be a timely blow for maturity in country music. ``1969,'' a baby boomer chronicle that takes in Vietnam, hippies and the continuing disappointment of that generation, has been climbing on the country charts.
On selections like ``Baltimore Street,'' ``Guilty Rose'' and ``Fifty-Fifty,'' the pitfalls are plentiful and victories hard-won.
``I do think there are people out there who'd like to have something they can relate to that's meaty every once in a while. I don't want to cram every negative song on the album down their throat, but I do think there's a place for that.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Stegall.by CNB