A native of Noblesville, Indiana, Steve Wariner grew up in a household filled with music. His father Roy was a huge fan of the guitar playing of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. Steve began playing bass and singing in the family’s country band at the age of ten. by the time he was 17, he landed a job playing bass for Dottie West. After 3 years with Dottie West he joined Bob Luman’s band before being hired by Chet Atkins. what followed was a relationship that lasted almost 25 years and influenced Steve deeply. Working intimately with Chet Atkins on the road and in the studio in Nashville, Steve learned musical lessons as well as life lessons from “Mr. Guitar”. Steve talks about his career, his experiences with Chet and an exciting new Chet Atkins tribute project.
As an artist Steve has had numerous #1 singles over his 30 year career, including “I’m Already Taken”, “Some Fools Never Learn”, “All Roads Lead To You”, “Longneck Bottle”, “Two Teardrops”, “Where did I go Wrong”, “Holes In The Floor of Heaven”, “What if I Said”, “I got Dreams” and “Tips of my Fingers”, among others.
He has earned numerous awards including 2 Grammys, the first in 1992 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration and the second in 2000 for Best Country Instrumental. Steve also has had 4 CMA awards, 16 BMI Country music awards, and the Song of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music for “Holes the Floor of Heaven”. Steve contributes to a variety of charitable causes and has received awards for his work with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and also was awarded the Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award.
TR: I know you started your professional career as a bass player with Dottie West’s band. Did Chet see you play then? just how did he come to hire you as a bass player?
SW: The first time I really met Chet I was with Dottie West, and this is about 1973 or ‘74. I think it would have been early ‘74. It was in London when I first met him. I was on an RCA tour playing with Dottie West and Chet was on part of that tour performing, plus as you know he was the label head at RCA in Nashville. so the first time I met him I was playing bass with Dottie and I just met him briefly back stage. I’m sure he didn’t remember that, but many years later we talked about it.
I met him again a little later. It was when I was playing with Bob Luman, which I did for about 2 years. during that period of time, Paul Yandell, Chet’s guitar accompanist was playing a lot of sessions in town – he was a pretty sought-after guitarist in the studio and, and Rip, the guitar player in Bob Luman’s band happened to be a friend of Paul’s.
So I would hang around with Paul. like I said I knew him a little bit through my friend Rip. It wound up that Bob was doing an album to be produced by Johnny Cash and I happened to have written some songs Bob was doing on the album.
Johnny Cash was producing Bob’s “Alive and Well” album and as it turned out, I got to play some on the album, too. (Four of Steve’s songs were ultimately included on the album) so I wound up in the “House of Cash” studio with Johnny Cash.
Waylon Jennings came in and played a track. I was playing bass on that session which was awesome right there, you know – but Paul heard some of my songs and asked if I would get some of my songs to Chet.
He knew that I loved Chet, he knew of my passion for Chet’s playing and everything about him – I just worshipped Chet, you know, and Paul pretty much knew that. so Paul said: “Why don’t you get some of your songs together ’cause I think Chet would love to hear some of these,”
So I made him a reel of some of my songs and it led to me and Chet meeting about the songs. Chet and I got together and had lunch one day and then I started hitting him up to produce me. I was still playing with Bob Luman, and Bob was going through some serious health problems and eventually at the age of 42, Bob passed away. I was playing with him when it happened and working with him and so we were all suddenly out of work – the whole band.
TR: you weren’t signed with a label then, were you?
SW: no I wasn’t at this point. I was just playing in Bob Luman’s band – and of course, I was unemployed now, and Chet and I had already gone in the studio and he had cut some tracks of me. I hadn’t signed yet, but it was kind of a “let me see what you sound like on tape”.
And man, you want to talk about intimidation! you know, to go into Studio B with Chet Atkins, I mean studio B is a museum here now you know. It’s where Elvis, the Everly’s and everybody in the world recorded. Chet recorded and produced so many hits there.
I think Chet knew about my guitar playing – he had heard me playing and singing my songs, but I think mostly he was going by word of mouth – from Paul more than anything else. I think he just needed someone to fill in, to go on a fly date.
I look back on the time now and I think Chet realized I was unemployed and I was struggling and had nothing going. I was trying to get my recording career off the ground. He helped out. I think in a lot of ways that says a lot about Chet.
So I hopped on a plane and I started playing a few dates with Chet while we were trying to get my records going.
We had recorded a few tracks and put them out and nothing had happened and in the meantime, I was playing dates on the road with Chet and I was loving that, ’cause all of a sudden, I found myself with the symphony dates, and we did small dates too, but I loved being there with Chet and Paul Yandell and George Lunn (Chet’s road manager), Larrie Londin, Tony Migliore and Randy Hauser. Randy was my roommate and my best friend. This was a great time in my life and a great experience for me.
TR: Now, tell me a little about your playing then, because obviously, you were playing bass with the band, and you had Paul playing guitar behind Chet. what was your guitar playing like then in the “bass playing” days?
SW: I was working on my guitar playing all the time, you know. I grew up with it. my dad played Travis style and Chet style and my dad had every Chet record there was so I was raised on Chet.
I mean, I knew – when they spoke the language of the songs, that even though I might have been on the fringes where I was listening in, I knew what they were talking about ’cause I was raised on Chet’s music.
I loved it because every now and then Chet would just hand me his Gretsch and say, “hey, do so-and-so, do this song”, and I would set my bass down, and Paul would go over and play bass and I would play one of my songs on Chet’s guitar – I would play Chet’s guitar and sometimes he’d feature me in the show. He would just come over and we’d do something. we did “Frog Kissin” in the show and Chet would come over and sing the choruses with me.
Honestly, it was so much fun, ’cause Chet was always trying to make something new – he was always working on his show, putting more comedy into it.
Someone would tell him a joke and he would pull out his little pad and write it down. when he heard a good one, he would take out a pad and write it down and remember it for his show.
I think Chet was a great comedian, and it’s amazing considering his background. He said he was so introverted and shy growing up and it was later on as he got older he was able to come out more. He was really a great comedian, I think. He knew his audience so well. He was so dry with his humor, he could just crack people up.
But honestly, I truly felt so blessed and so lucky. I had the best seat every night in the house. I was just a couple of feet from Chet every night and I would sit in those symphony seats. half the show I didn’t even play – I just sat there. half of it was either just the symphony and Chet or Chet by himself.
But I would just sit back and lay my bass on my lap and just listen and watch. I’m sitting two feet from him, you know, right in front of the cellos. I just closed my eyes and listened.
I was watching it closely ’cause I knew that at some point, I was going to hopefully be making records and be on my own and though I certainly learned a lot from Dottie West and Bob Luman, I was really soaking it up with Chet.
He started using me in the studio with him and we were cutting things and I would play with him occasionally. usually, when he had a singing part, like later on when he recorded “East Tennessee Christmas” he’d feature me on a little singing thing here and there and I loved that. I learned so much being around him in my sessions. but really, any time I was around him, I was watching him closely. I learned a ton from him in the studio just watching him.
TR: well, I wanted to ask you about the learning part because as you know, a lot of Chet fans are amateur guitarists and they would say, “Boy, I bet Steve got a lot of great up close guitar lessons just being around Chet” and I know that’s probably true, but I want to see if you can describe his influence on you in a couple of other ways too. Do you think Chet influenced your songwriting?
SW: Oh, no question about it, I certainly think he did. It wasn’t the type of songwriting influence like with Dottie West – she would talk about specifics – she helped me with my songwriting by actually saying, “Why don’t you say ‘this’ instead of ‘that,’”
She would go into a line I wrote and say, “Drop this line and say ‘this’ instead of ‘that”.
Chet would never do that. I would bring him songs and he would listen. And I could sort of tell what he was thinking just by the way he responded. if he really liked it I could tell, and if he didn’t like it I could tell that too. He really wouldn’t say he didn’t like it, but he was just not as enthusiastic. He was always so kind, you know.
So yes, I did learn about songwriting, and picking songs for sure I learned from him. another thing I learned was the audience, learning your audience and what songs to do, and what not to do.
He also taught me not to be so self-indulgent with my music, especially when making a record.
I’d say something like, “I really like this,” and he’d say, “Well you’re not the one buying the record. you need to you need to make it for them. Do what they’re going to like, they’re the ones buying it. You’re not going to buy one.”
But most of all I learned from Chet about being kind to people. He was so kind to everybody.
I saw him many times standing on the street and talking to people, or in a store. They’d say “Hey, you’re Chet Atkins,” and he’d stay and talk to folks. He had no idea who they were, but he would take the time and listen. Not many icons do that – hang out with the average guy on the street.
So that always impressed me. They couldn’t believe they were standing there talking to him, talking about their garden or whatever. but he really cared, you know.
He could talk to folks on any level. I was with him one time with Gerald Ford and when he was talking to Gerald Ford, I was just thinking, here he is – he’s just as comfortable talking to the average guy on the street as he is to the president. He could do them both the same way.
Not many people can do that, talking to the President of the United States or talking to the head of a record label or talking to the average guy. He was just incredible that way. He never forgot his roots. I think Chet always remembered those east Tennessee days growing up.
TR: That’s part of what people like about him isn’t it?
SW: It’s the charm of someone who remembers the hard times. He never forgot those days. my dad was a lot like that too. Chet certainly didn’t forget the depression days or his hard times or his roots, where he came from.
My family came from a similar place – that same Appalachian background and experience. I think he saw that in me, too. I think Chet understood that I was cut from the same cloth so to speak as he was in a lot of ways. It was a different generation, but I think we shared that common ground.
TR: I know that Chet was a fan of a good melody. I know he would hum along with tunes. tell me what you think about that. Did you see Chet as a country artist? what was he if you had to categorize him?
SW: I think that’s the neat thing about Chet – the target was moving all the time. no one could pin him into one place. That’s what was beautiful about him – that he didn’t really stay in one place musically. He was as comfortable hanging out with the Beatles as he was with Roy Acuff, you know, and he could play with both of them just as easily.
He was so musical – he was just a great music person. I think I feel a lot like the way Chet did. I joke about this sometimes, that there’s really only two kinds of music – good or bad. I either really like it or I don’t like it. It doesn’t matter if it’s country or pop or whatever. Chet was that way – if it had a good melody, he loved that. You’re right – he loved melodies, and if you watch his playing, I think that’s where he stood out from most guitar players or from every guitar player, is with the way he treats the melody.
Nowadays, the young guys especially will come out playing everything at once – Chet used to say “it sounds like they’re getting paid by the note”. They’re playing everything they know right out from the top. but listen to Chet’s records – he’ll actually play the melody, you know? what a concept!
SW: you know, he’ll play the melody and then he’ll stretch it so incredibly that your jaw would drop as the song progresses. And then he always comes back to it – he always comes back to the melody. I love that, it’s so smart. He was so smart, man, I mean, just – not only musically speaking, but all the way around. just brilliant. He would just play the melody and you’d say, gosh – what a concept. There’s a reason that song is so great – it’s because of the melody, you know, and he knew that. A lot of guys, they’re trying to play everything they know and they’re trying to cram it into three minutes and you actually don’t know what the song is half the time. You’re going, “I think I recognize this song.”
TR: That’s a bad sign.
SW: It sure is. you know some of the life lessons I learned from him were incredible.
Paul Yandell and I have talked about this. We’re really lucky that we had a chance to be around him during all the good musical stuff, but we were also with him when he had some of his illness. I watched how he dealt with some of the down parts of his life, you know, the real down parts.
And when he knew he was in trouble with his health, especially at the end there, I watched how he handled a lot of that and, and he was always just so grateful about his life.
TR: Have you learned things about the business from Chet?
SW: Oh, no question – there’s no question about that. when I got into a bind just as any artist goes through in the music business, I could always come to Chet.
Certainly the business has changed since Chet was a label head, you know, but there was nothing I was going through that he didn’t know about or didn’t know how to advise me. He always had an answer, an opinion, and I called him and he always wanted me to. He always said, “Man, if you’ve got questions, or you want to talk – just call”
The first person I would call with anything would be Chet, and I would come down to his office and we’d talk. He’d say, “What’s going on?” and I’d say, “Well, the label’s wanting me to do this, or they’re asking me to do that.” I would go through it and I’d be real frustrated and disappointed, but he would just help walk me through things.
One time I was with a label, and I couldn’t get them to do something. It looks silly looking back on it, but at the time it was so important to me, it was so enormous and I don’t even remember what it was now. but Chet was just calm and helpful. He just kind of steered me through it. He would say, “You know how to do this, just go take care of your business.”
So he was coaching me I guess. There was really nothing I could face or go through in this business that he hadn’t done 20 times, or a hundred times before.
TR: I was looking at your Web site, at your discography and all the awards for the different hits and to me, it obvious you have a consistency of success over 30 years. You’ve been able to span a long period of time with success while doing a lot of different things.
SW: I really attribute that to Chet, and I’m not just saying this, but I would tell anybody this. I used to be so worried about this and that, and Chet would always tell me, “There’s only one Steve Wariner. you just need to be yourself – don’t try to be somebody else. what you need to do is just be the best Steve Wariner you can be, and don’t worry about the rest of that stuff. Let everybody else be themselves and you just worry about you. if you just keep your head and keep your mind focused and I promise things will fall into place. just do the best you can do, and that’s all you can do.”
TR: And it worked out.
SW: yes – so I’ve always kind of just done that. I always think that I’m just doing what I do and if that’s good enough, that’s good enough, and if it’s not, that’s OK, too. That’s what Chet did. He just did what he did and he didn’t worry about trying to keep up with the other guy. He just did his own thing.
TR: This probably seems like a trivial question, but do you have any favorite Chet recordings you can think of in your mind?
SW: I put on “Vincent” every once in a while just to listen to that. I like the last version he did of that, from “Read my Licks”.
Every now and then I just need a little dose of Chet, and I’ll listen to that, or – I have several collections that I listen to. I’ll go back and listen to the early RCA years and songs like “Black Mountain Rag” and I like those pretty melody songs. I also like “Blue Angel”.
I found a cassette tape the other day. I remember being in Chet’s office one day many years ago and I was trying to play “Blue Angel”. I don’t know how this happened, but he always had a boom box in his office and we recorded tons of stuff on it. I’ve got a bunch of stuff that Chet and I recorded – just us sitting around in his office, and I found a cassette of him teaching me “Blue Angel”. It was a lesson, really – he was going like, “Then you come up here,” and you hear him playing and then he’d say, “And then do this…” .
It was so great hearing his voice, you know. I’ve got several cassettes of us that I found – I would walk in sometimes and he’d be recording something to send to Garrison Keillor. I’d walk in and he’d say, “Oh, I’m putting down this old song to send to Garrison.” He’d say, “Grab that bass over there” and I’d grab it. I’d been there two seconds and I was playing on a boom box with him, you know -
TR: Did it turn into a couple of hours?
SW: Yeah, and we’d put down four or five songs and he’d say, “Here’s another song”. He’d name a song to me that was like 150 years old and then he would be mad that I didn’t know it! you know, and it’s a song that was pre-Civil War or something! He knew every song in the history of time, I think.
TR: I have heard that from several people.
SW: One of the proudest moments for me, was when I signed with Capitol and Chet was already starting to be sick, really sick and “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” had just won the awards and was real big and everything was clicking.
About that time, my album “Burnin’ the Roadhouse Down” was finished and that was the first commercial thing where I was producing all my own stuff. At that point I had done “No More mr. Nice Guy”, the guitar album but really had just started coming into my own as a producer and I produced all that stuff just by myself. Some of the previous commercial hits I did I co-produced with Jimmy Bowen or Tony Brown. I was kind of a co-producer, really.
But this was the first stuff I really did by myself and anyway, Chet and (his wife) Leona really loved “Holes in the Floor of Heaven.” Every time I was over at their house Chet would point to a guitar and say “Do that ‘Holes in the Floor of Heaven’ for Leona” and I would do it and I would always gladly do it, which made me proud.
But when the whole album was done, I was talking to Chet one day and he said, “Man, why don’t you bring it over here ’cause I want to hear it,” so I went over to his house and we sat at his kitchen table and he had a Bose portable system, the top-loading one where you put CD in the top – and we sat at the table and I was going to play him a few cuts. I wasn’t going to play him everything – it was like 12 tracks or something, but I thought, well, I’ll play him a few tracks, a couple of highlights ’cause I know he liked “Holes”.
So we sat at his kitchen table and I put in the disc and I played a couple of tracks. “Burnin’ the Roadhouse Down” was the song that started first. Buddy Emmons played this cool solo, and then it went into “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” and then, and then – I forget the other tracks. I played about three or four tracks and I stopped. I reached up and stopped it and Chet just looked me and he goes, “Man, that’s really good.” He goes, “Way to go – that’s really good,” and then so I stopped it – I reached up and stopped it and he goes, “What are you doing?” and I said, “I just wanted to play you a few things,” and he pushed play again and he goes, “No, I want to hear all of this. I want to hear what you did,” and he wouldn’t let me stop.
We listened from head to toe. I played him the whole album – all 12 tracks and when it got done, he looked at me and he kinda did his crooked smile thing and he looked at me and said, “Well, I guess I did something right,” and man – that made me feel so proud, you know? I took it that he was referring to the fact that he “discovered” me and signed me as a recording artist, but he just said, “I guess I did something right,” and I really loved that. That was so cool.
TR: That is very cool. That’s a great story. what an eye for talent he had, and for developing people.
SW: Oh, there’s no question on that one. I was so proud to be in on that bunch. I saw a roster in his office one day of all the people either he had signed or produced or both, and it was three pages of “Who’s Who” in the world of music. I mean, it was unbelievable all the names on there.
TR: Steve, thanks for taking the time to talk today.
SW: Thank you, Tom.
Working With Chet Atkins – An Interview With Grammy Winner Steve …
