Tommy Stewart

Despite never achieving widespread recognition, Tommy Stewart—frequently listed in credits under the name Thomas Stewart—has long been known to devotees of soul, funk, and disco through their close scrutiny of album liner notes. His initial major contributions arrived via the Buddah label, where he composed, arranged, and produced the tracks for Spirit of Atlanta’s 1973 release The Burning of Atlanta, an expansive set of strings-laden funk that suited the blaxploitation genre. Subsequent projects brought collaborations with Major Lance, Loleatta Holloway, Tamiko Jones, Ripple, and Luther Ingram. His only solo effort, a self-titled collection issued on Abraxas in 1976, later received a reissue from Luv N’ Haight, an Ubiquity imprint, in 2003. Six years after that reissue, Funky Town Grooves assembled the various-artists anthology Make Happy Music, spotlighting tracks Stewart had written or produced. In 2012 Cultures of Soul put out Tommy Stewart’s Disco Love Affair, which presented the full contents of Stevo’s Musica Negra—produced by Stewart—alongside several additional pieces from his own catalog.