Stuart McNair

Stuart's latest CD, Growing a Garden, is now available at CDbaby.com. It's an 18-song solo acoustic collection that showcases Stuart's dazzling tunes at their most pure and intimate. Stuart comes from South Alabama. He was raised mostly in Mobile, and grew up with family and friends along the gulf coast, and in New Orleans. He began playing piano at an early age, then began to take up new instruments. In high school, he played trumpet in the marching band, which allowed him to march in Mardi Gras parades and travel around the South. He began playing in bands outside of school as well, and did gigs with short-lived bands as a drummer, bass player, and keyboardist. Stuart's knack for both literature and music led to some scholarships and a period of academic pursuit at the University of Alabama. There, Stuart again marched in the marching band, this time travelling the country. After three years at UA, Stuart was approached by an 8-piece punk/ska band called PAIN that needed a trumpet player for a national tour. Stuart then left school and toured the USA extensively in a Ford van. Stuart recorded several studio and live albums with PAIN, and he contributed accordion, piano, organ, backing vocals, ukelele, and even a little writing to PAIN's studio albums. PAIN even got some exposure through Cartoon Network and MTV2. After the breakup of PAIN, in 2001, Stuart went back to UA to finish what would become an English degree. At school, he founded a poetry reading series and wrote many sarcastic letters to the school newspaper's editorial page. At the same time, he bagan recording his first collection of original songs. In 2002, Stuart released his first CD of original material, titled "I Can't See Over the Accordion". It contained 24 songs, and no two were alike. Some were folky, some punky...one was techno, and one was sung in Spanish. A couple of the funny songs from the CD got national airplay on some quirky specialty shows like "Dr. Demento". Next, Stuart began Red Label Revolver, a young and fun band that would be the vehicle for his songs fo a couple of years. It was a four-piece, and recorded two CDs. The second one was recorded in Nashville by a less-than-competent producer. The chaotic and expensive recording experience, and the lack of decent product, meant the demise of RLR. It also meant that Stuart was without a band, without the products he had hoped for, and quite out of money. This led to a period of rebuilding in which Stuart found himself in the small town of Montevallo, AL. Here, Stuart began an earnest spiritual quest that involved increased immersion in nature and meditation. He began recording a new set of songs that would become the CD "Building a Fire". "Building a Fire" was released in 2004, and received a fair amount of national airplay thanks to a radio promotions agency and some compilations that made the rounds. That CD allowed Stuart to start meeting more people and playing at more venues around the Birmingham area and the Gulf Coast. Over time, Stuart would meet the players that would make up the Contraband, and this began would begin to make a name for itself. Stuart began recording again in 2006, in preparation for a new studio CD. Stuart released two samplers of this material in 2007. The first sampler, titled "Make Levee's, Not War", included some of Stuart's politial statemets relevant to Hurricane Katrina. Some of this music has been used by environmental groups and documentarians in the New Orleans area. Stuart released an 18 song acoustic collection in October 2008. Recorded at Birmingham's premier Capture Music Studios, the project showcases Stuart's songs distilled and presented in their true essence. More projects are on the way, including live and in-studio full band projects, some live bootlegs, and a spoken word project. Stay tuned!