Red Steagall

Red Steagall juggled three concurrent paths across barely three decades while also launching the career of country star Reba McEntire. As a tunesmith he produced more than 200 songs, several of which reached the upper ranks when recorded by other artists. As a Nashville performer he logged multiple chart entries throughout the 1970s along with several sizable successes. As an interpreter of Western material and composer of verse centered on the frontier, he stands among the leading cowboy balladeers of contemporary music.

Born Russell Steagall in Gainesville, Texas, on December 22, 1938, he began competing as a bull rider in rodeos during his teenage years. At fifteen, polio forced him to take up guitar and mandolin to rebuild coordination in his limbs. While enrolled at West Texas State University he assembled his initial ensemble, a country group. After heading to the West Coast he gained traction in Los Angeles folk venues and secured his first songwriting placement in 1967, at age thirty, when Ray Charles cut “Here We Go Again,” later interpreted by Nancy Sinatra.

Dot Records signed him in 1968, yet after three years he switched to Capitol and, billed simply as Steagall, scored his initial country success with “Party Dolls and Wine” in 1972. Shortly afterward he reached the Top 20 with “Somewhere My Love.” His relocation to Nashville in 1973 yielded two further hits, “True Love” and “If You’ve Got the Time.” While appearing regularly at rodeos, he noticed teenage vocalist Reba McEntire performing with her family at the 1974 National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City; he arranged a demo for her and ensured it reached influential ears, leading to her first recording contract.

Subsequent releases included the Top 20 entries “I Gave Up Good Morning Darling” and “The Finer Things in Life,” plus the Top 15 single “Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills Music” in 1976; his version of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” also charted. By the late 1970s he had begun shifting emphasis toward Western music alongside country. Elektra Records welcomed him in 1979, and in 1980 he departed Nashville for his ranch near Fort Worth.

Western recordings opened a fresh chapter. Fronting the Coleman County Boys he became a fixture at rodeos, and his discs found a devoted audience among cowboy-song enthusiasts. The poems “Ride for the Brand” and “Born to This Land” proved widely popular, and during the 1980s he took acting parts in the films Benji the Hunted, Dark Before Dawn, and Big Bad John.

In 1991 the Texas legislature named him Official Cowboy Poet of Texas. He soon began recording for the Warner Western label, issuing Born to This Land in 1993. Further albums followed: Faith and Values in 1995, Dear Mama, I’m a Cowboy in 1997, and Love of the West in 1999. Wagon Tracks emerged on Shanachie Records in 2002, and The Wind the Wire and the Rail appeared on Wildcatter Records in 2006.