“One of the most adventurous and daring books about a popular musician to come in a long time” - Rolling Stone

“A fascinating, hard-bitten, uncompromising portrait of a man at odds with the world… like Gary Stewart's life, a wild ride.” - The Times UK

A story of sex, drugs, honky-tonks and more… - MOJO (4-stars)

April 2, 2026 - Today, Wolf+Salmon and legendary biographer Jimmy McDonough celebrate the release of McDonough’s Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky-Tonks, the definitive telling of the life of the late, great honky-tonk legend Gary Stewart. Already acclaimed as an immense achievement by fans and critics alike, Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky-Tonks marks the first-ever in-depth telling of Stewart’s story and reaffirms McDonough’s status as America’s greatest chronicler of popular culture. 

The book is available for purchase via Wolf+Salmon HERE, through online and brick and mortar retail. Ebook and audiobook (read by McDonough himself) versions are available on online platforms. 

One of the greatest unsung heroes in the history of American music, Gary Stewart’s crazed hits like “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”, “Drinkin’ Thing”, “Draggin’ Shackles”, and “An Empty Glass” still stand as standards of the honky-tonk genre and earned him the admiration of Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, The Allman Brothers, Tanya Tucker (who called him “one of the greatest country singers of all time”), and many others. Within a few years, he had flamed out and all-but-vanished from the music scene. Until Jimmy McDonough barged his way into the spooky, Florida doublewide Stewart was hiding out in, beginning a four-decade obsession with the elusive musician.   

Told in McDonough’s inimitable, two-fisted style, Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky-Tonks has already been celebrated by top publications and McDonough has completed interviews for several notable outlets and podcasts, including David Wild and Phil Rosenthal’s Naked Lunch podcast (which features an introduction by beloved comedian/actor Patton Oswalt), Sound Opinions, Jokermen, Paste, and the Portland Mercury. Last month, McDonough also shared a special excerpt from the book’s ‘Jukin’ chapter with Rolling Stone, who proclaimed it “one of the most adventurous and daring books about a popular musician to come in a long time”. Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky-Tonks has also been positively reviewed by the Wall St Journal, The Times (UK), and MOJO, who gave the book a very positive 4-star advanced review. 

While still enjoying a strong grassroots following with older country fans, there has been a resurgence of interest in Gary Stewart’s music in recent years that has found him been rediscovered, championed, and covered by the new wave of Nashville stars, including Ella Langley, Midland, 2025 CMA New Artist of the Year winner Zach Top, Charley Crockett, and 2025 CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Cody Johnson, as well as indie musicians Ryan Davis and Wednesday. Stewart’s music has over 400K monthly listeners on Spotify alone. 

Beginning in Brooklyn on April 8, McDonough will be appearing at bookstores and venues across the country this spring, including a special book event at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on April 11 and a conversation moderated by Patton Oswalt at the LA GRAMMY Museum on April 22. The latter event will feature a special performance of Gary Stewart songs by GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter and producer Jonathan Wilson (Margo Price, Kesha, Father John Misty), accompanied by veteran steel guitar player Greg Leisz, who played with Stewart. 

In addition to Brooklyn (where McDonough will be joined by acclaimed singer/performance artist Tammy Faye Starlite), the tour will continue on to Louisville (Louisville Free Public Library); two dates in Austin — at Waterloo Records, in conversations with author Joe Nick Patoski w/ live music from Texas troubadour Jake Penrod, and at First Light Books in conversation and with music from Austin singer-songwriter Kevin Dehan (aka Cactus Lee). The tour will close in Los Angeles with the GRAMMY Museum, and another special night at Stories Books and Cafe (April 23rd), with McDonough in conversation with veteran publicist, producer and Sirius XM Cowpunks to Nowpunks radio host, Bill Bentley, and a special Stewart-inspired mini-set by legendary Detroit rocker Margaret Dollrod(formerly of Detroit garage rockers Demolition Doll Rods). A full tour itinerary can be found below.

Full US Tour Itinerary

April 8 - Brooklyn, NY - Powerhouse Arena (w/ Tammy Faye Starlite)

https://powerhousearena.com/events/book-launch-gary-stewart-i-am-from-the-honky-tonks-by-jimmy-mcdonough-in-conversation-with-tammy-faye-starlite/



April 9 - Louisville, KY - Louisville Free Public Library (w/ WFPK’s Michael Young)

https://www.lfpl.org/lifelong-learning#148

April 11 - Nashville, TN - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (w/ RJ Smith + Shannon Ashburn)

https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/calendar/book-talk-gary-stewart-i-am-from-the-honky-tonks-with-jimmy-mcdonough?date=04/11/2026&time=1772375400%7C1772380800 

April 13 - Austin, TX - First Light Books (w/ Kevin Dehan aka Cactus Lee) 

https://www.firstlightaustin.com/events/jimmy-mcdonough-gary-stewart-i-am-from-the-honky-tonks

April 14 - Austin, TX - Waterloo Records (w/ Joe Nick Patoski + Jake Penrod)

https://waterloorecords.com/

April 22 - Los Angeles, CA - GRAMMY Museum (w/ Patton Oswalt, Jonathan Wilson, + Greg Leisz) 

https://grammymuseum.org/event/gary-stewart-i-am-from-the-honky-tonks/

April 23 - Los Angeles, CA - Stories Books and Cafe (w/ Bill Bentley + Margaret Doll Rod)

https://storiesla.com/events/4737520260423

About Jimmy McDonough

Jimmy McDonough is America’s greatest living biographer. A pop culture maven with a two-fisted style that reads more like pulp fiction, the larger-than-life subjects of McDonough’s books leap off the page and lodge themselves in the subconscious. 

McDonough has written eight biographies. They skew between cultural icons with massive worldwide appeal, and fascinating obscurities from the American underground; every one of them messy, complicated figures whose messy, complicated lives McDonough often embeds himself with, researches to death, and explores in all their unexpurgated, unvarnished glory. The first seven, in chronological order of publication: Neil Young, Andy Milligan, Russ Meyer, Tammy Wynette, Al Green, The Ormonds, Georgette Dante. 

His eighth, and latest, Gary Stewart: I Am From the Honky-Tonks, the jaw-dropping tale of the titular ’70s honky-tonk singer-songwriter, a true country music outlaw, gestated over almost 40 years. The book was born, like several others in his oeuvre, of a personal relationship with the subject that informs both its tone and the author’s trademark intrusion into the narrative. McDonough swears this will be the last biography he writes, concluding an expertly curated catalogue of work that doubles as a lifelong, obsessive, and very personal investigation into outsized outsider artists who all reflected and shaped American post-war culture.

For more information on Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky Tonks, please reach out to Matt Hanks (mhanks@shorefire.com), Greg Jakubik (gjakubik@shorefire.com), and Henry Thomas (hthomas@shorefire.com) at Shore Fire Media. 

For more information on Wolf+Salmon, please reach out to Chris Campion (chris@wolfandsalmon.com).