JEFFERY STEELE, Nashville's Bruce Springsteen
First of all Phil, you should know that Jeffery IS HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE FIRST AND FOREMOST AN ARTIST. It's how his career got started and even today, he is much more artist than anything else. He routinely does 4 and 5 hour shows, doing continuous versions of his hits, leading us to call him "JEFFERY STEEL BLADDER!" My friend Rusty Golden played keyboards with him for years and there is nothing quite like seeing Jeffery full speed. He wears me out. And I've done a half dozen shows with him. Some of my most fun times are myself, him and Jimbeau Hinson. That is SONGWRITING ON STEROIDS! But on to the MAN OF STEELE!
He got his start in LOS ANGELES in the 80's and early 90's. He was the bass player and lead singer in a band called BOY HOWDY. They were the house band for the world famous PALAMINO club, which was the top country bar in LA, In addition to playing their own songs, they were the house band, backing up people like Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, any of the major stars who would swing through without a backing band. They did hundreds of shows and played the rest of the weeks as a regular cover band.
They had a hit called "SHE'LL DO ANYTHING" in the mid 80's while still being in LA, Jeff was the lead singer and wrote the song. In the early 90's they moved to Nashville and he'll be the first to tell you, brought a hefty helping of "LA attitude" with him, which we still get a lot of. The LA people tend to think they are in HOLLYWOOD and are trying to outcool each other. It also brings a lot of arrogance. Jeff had plenty of that and still laughs at himself. I mean, he had a number one BEFORE he got to Nashville.
He got here and went COLD. Even while having three record deals, and continually touring, none of his songs got TRACTION and he didn;t get any cuts either. About eight years of this and no one really knew what to do with him. His main "big break" came when he started writing with a guy who moved to town named "BIG AL" ANDERSON. Big Al was very well known, from his band NRBQ, which was this legendary college touring band. Think GRATEFUL DEAD of colleges. They toured everywhere and were huge. They did that for about 20 years but were virtually unknown outside of colleges. But some of the people that were GOING to those colleges, being in the fraternities, worshiping "THE Q" would go on to head up record labels, publishing companies, television networks. When Al moved to Nashville wanting to be a songwriter they fell all over themselves to give him the key to the city. Hero worship pure and simple.
Al and Jeffery started writing together. Since everyone wanted to hear Al's songs, the doors flew open. The first big hit they had was a number eight called UNBELIEVABLE, from a group called DIAMOND RIO. Was their first big hit and was followed by several more. Jeffery became red hot, and got cut after cut after cut. And his deal with MCA was picked up and they put him out on the road. The song you mentioned, "SOMETHING IN THE WATER" was a single but could not get radio airplay. At one of the radio stations, Jeffery was doing an interview. Doing a commercial break, he looked straight at the DJ and asked why he was not playing that record. The DJ him hawed around and said he "Didn't fit the format" for the station. Jeffery looked at their play list and found he had five songs in the top 20 on other artists.
So he kept playing but eventually lost his deal. He continued to write and produce other acts. One time, Jimbeau, myself, Rusty Golden and two other writers traveled with Jeff by bus to Mississippi to play in Jimbeau's home town of Newton Mississippi. A tornado had hit the town and wiped out a lot of that community. So we were doing a benefit for the town. He was telling us about this new band he was producing and played some demos. That band would go on to be known as RASCAL FLATTS. He was producing his songs on them. One of those songs, THESE DAYS would go on to be a big hit. Again, trying to get pitches on songs is so hard because the producers are usually writers too and you have to deliver songs better than there on. With Jefferey, that is a tall order.
On that show, that was pretty cool, there was me and Jeff, who are both left handed, and three other guitar players, who were right handed. So we looked like a really strange Eagles, with guitars pointing in all kinds of directions. For those of you who think left handers look weird, it looks weird to us to. But we can play each other's guitars, which has happened on numerous occassions as well.
On that show, that was pretty cool, there was me and Jeff, who are both left handed, and three other guitar players, who were right handed. So we looked like a really strange Eagles, with guitars pointing in all kinds of directions. For those of you who think left handers look weird, it looks weird to us to. But we can play each other's guitars, which has happened on numerous occassions as well.
At one point, around 2010, I heard him on a radio interview, The guy interviewing him had pulled up his resume and said that in an 8 year span Jeffery had had over 100 cuts, 87 top 20's, around 13 top tens and five number ones. With a track record like that, he probably doesn't have to get another cut. But I believe he has some new stuff coming out. Should be good.
He is second only to CRAIG WISEMAN in success ratio in this town and still the gold standard. and he has payed it forward, writing with people like Cris Wallin, on the song "I'M TRYIN' which was Chris's first big hit and started a string of his hits that still go on today. Jeffery is very good about taking time to talk to writers. He was doing a "songwriter's boot camp" but it was a bit pricey and he got a lot of ribbing from his contemporaries and I think he quit doing it. The only thing about Jeff is that he has ADD and often his workshops or conversation will drift and it is hard to follow him.
I helped my friends Cliff and Bev, set up a workshop with him and had him out one year. I helped them on everything but forgot one detail. I prepared them by saying you had to have questions prepared to get him BACK on track when he drifts off. But I forgot to tell them that you also have to TELL HIM THE WORKSHOP IS AN HOUR EARLIER THAN IT IS. Because he is terminally LATE. Sure enough, on the day of the workshop, he showed up an hour and a half late. Fortunately,I had also arranged for a friend of mine and my song plugger at the time, Penny Dionne, to be out there at the same time. She managed to cover him by answering song plugger questions from the group. And that jump started her career as a song plugger. So Jeff helps other people by not even being there.
So that is Jeffery. Great guy, very successful and even if you don't always hear of him, he is always around. One of the cool things about him is that he carries the memory with his Dad every where. His real name is LAVASSEA. But his Dad owned a metal manufacturing shop. So he changed his name to "STEEL" in tribute to his Father. If you have ever heard the Montgomery Gentry song, "THIS IS MY TOWN", you hear a line that says
"When it came to blows with my ol Man" That actually was about his Dad. But his Dad didn't hit him. His Dad hit his brother and knocked him through a screen door, when his brother made disparaging remarks about the country and the military during Vietnam. So he puts stuff about his family in all his songs. The song "MY WISH" was written for his daughter's wedding. And "What Hurts the Most" is about his son, Alex, who was killed in an ATV accident when he was 12 years old. He built a children's park in his memory and does a lot of charity work each year in Alex's memory.
Just like all the things we are talking about. It is about one person knowing,writing with, building relationships with another person and another and another.
That's how careers are created.
MAB
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