By Jason Zasky
The Grammy-winning songwriter/producer—and longtime LOCAL resident—offers insights into his career & creative process
The path to getting started in the music business can be nebulous. But Keith Stegall’s upbringing prepared him well for a career as a songwriter and producer.
“My dad was a guitarist who played in a band with Johnny Horton, who was a big country star in the late 1950s. And my mom was a writer who penned short stories,” begins Stegall, who says his parents helped him develop the skills that would enable him to write both music and lyrics.
“Also, my uncle had a recording studio, so by the time I was six or seven years old, I was in the studio and learning about the recording process,” he continues.
Yet it wasn’t until Stegall met country music legend/actor Kris Kristofferson that he considered pursuing his music career in Nashville, rather than moving from Louisiana to the West Coast.
“Kristofferson was doing a show at my college, and I got to speak with him backstage and play him a couple of my songs in a little dressing room. He said, ‘You need to get your ass to Nashville,’” he recalls.
Before long, Stegall did just that, and in three short years, he landed a publishing deal. Then, in 1980, he had his first hit song, called “Sexy Eyes,” by Dr. Hook.
“It was the disco era, and if you were at a skating rink in 1980, you would have heard that song, because it was a global hit,” he says.
Stegall would go on to record two solo albums—Keith Stegall (1985) and Passages (1996)—, but he has achieved his greatest critical and commercial success writing songs and producing albums for other artists, including Randy Travis, who helped kick-start Stegall’s production career.
In the years since, he has won countless awards as a songwriter and producer, including a Grammy for Country Album of the Year in 2013, having produced Uncaged by the Zac Brown Band. He also won 1991 ACM Album of the Year for producing Don’t Rock the Jukebox for Alan Jackson, and 1991 ACM Single of the Year for the album’s title track, which he co-wrote with Jackson.
Stegall likens being a music producer to being the director of a movie.
“You are responsible for all the moving parts, including giving guidance to the musicians, guidance to the artist, and creating a comfort zone for the artist so they can do their best work,” he explains. “It’s a lot of different things, but it’s a major support role for creative people.”
Stegall cites 2003’s ACM Single of the Year as a representative example of how a producer can shape the creative process.
“I had been pitched a demo for ‘It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere’ by one of the writers, and when we first tracked it, I tried to copy the demo. But it just didn’t fit Alan Jackson,” recalls Stegall. “Jimmy Buffett heard the track and said, ‘Damn, Alan, you’re starting to sound like one of my records,’ at which point Alan said, ‘You need to make it sound like me.’ There was that moment when Alan became sensitive about that and wanted it to be branded as his basic sound and not be chasing what Buffett was doing.”
In that way, being a producer is not unlike being an editor.
“Someone can say one thing that changes the whole direction, so it’s always an open forum for people to contribute. Part of my job is to filter everything and say, ‘You’re right, let’s give that a shot.’ Or ‘No, I don’t hear it that way,’” relates Stegall, before noting that he is as excited as ever about finding a new artist with extraordinary talent—or writing that next hit song.
And while his approach to writing and recording remains much the same as it has for years, Stegall is not opposed to change. For example, he recently acquired Creative Workshop, a historic Nashville recording studio. He’s even learning about AI, trying to ascertain if it can help him do better work.
“We can all bitch and moan about AI, but it’s not going to go away. It’s only going to become more refined and play a bigger part in what we do. I have to learn how to utilize AI, but not let it change the way I make records,” he says, emphasizing that he would never use AI to generate music or lyrics. “I’m just becoming acquainted with what is possible. There are certain things I can use AI for and certain things I would not use it for.”
One thing that doesn’t figure to change, though, is Stegall’s home address.
“I bought property in Maury County 14 years ago, right after Clay Walker, who lives across the road from me,” he offers. Stegall loves that his spread is close enough to Nashville to allow for a reasonable commute, but still decidedly ‘out in the country.’
“I get enough of the buzzsaw that is the music business,” he concludes, “and it’s nice to be able to get away from it and not be saturated by it.”
