Jon Randall Stewart is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Signed to RCA Nashville in 1995, he debuted that year with the album What You Don't Know. A second album for RCA, 1996's Great Day to Be Alive, was recorded but never released. That same year, Randall entered Top 40 on the country charts as a duet partner on then-wife Lorrie Morgan's song "By My Side". A third album, 1998's Cold Coffee Morning, was issued on Asylum Records, followed by 1999's Willin′ on the independent Eminent label. Finally, in 2005, he issued Walking Among the Living on Epic Records. In addition to the four studio albums that he has released, and the three songs he has charted on the BillboardHot Country Songs charts, Randall co-wrote the song "Whiskey Lullaby", which became a Top 5 hit when Brad Paisley recorded it as a duet with Alison Krauss on his 2003 album Mud on the Tires.
Biography
Jon Randall Stewart was born on February 17, 1969 in Dallas, Texas. In his teenage years, he relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, where he found work as a guitarist in Emmylou Harris's band The Nash Ramblers. In 1992, Randall won a Grammy award under the winner name 'Emmylou Harris & Nash Ramblers, artists.' for Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. The award was for the album "Live at the Ryman". Randall also participated in the Grammy winning project 'Carl Jackson and John Starling, which won in 1991, but only Jackson and Starling received the award. In 1995, he was signed to RCA Records Nashville as a solo artist, releasing his debut album What You Don't Know that year. Due to a restructuring at the label, however, the album received little publicity, and its only chart single peaked at No. 74 on the country charts. After the release of What You Don't Know, Randall set to work on a second album for RCA, entitled Great Day to Be Alive. During the recording session for this album, Randall met country singer Lorrie Morgan, whom he eventually married and with whom he performed the duet "By My Side" for both his own album and for her 1996 album Greater Need. "By My Side" was released as a single in 1996, becoming Randall's only Top 40 hit on the country music charts and won a Music City News Award for Vocal Collaboration. Great Day to Be Alive was never released. However, its Darrell Scott-penned title track "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" would be recorded in 2000 by Travis Tritt for his album Down the Road I Go, from which it was released as a single. By 1998, Randall had moved to Asylum Records to record his third studio album. Entitled Cold Coffee Morning, this album produced singles in its title track and the song "She Don't Believe in Fairy Tales", the former of which reached No. 71 on the country charts. Randall and Morgan divorced around this point, and Cold Coffee Morning also went unreleased. A more Americana-oriented album, entitled Willin′, was issued in 1999 on the independent Eminent label.
2000s
In 1998, Randall and country singer Bill Anderson co-wrote "Whiskey Lullaby". This song was inspired by Randall's manager who, upon noticing the singer's troubled life at the time, told Randall, "Every now and then, you've got to put a bottle to your head and pull the trigger." Brad Paisley then selected the song for his 2003 album Mud on the Tires, recording "Whiskey Lullaby" as a duet with singer Alison Krauss. Released in 2004, Paisley's and Krauss's rendition of "Whiskey Lullaby" was a No. 2 hit on the country charts, earning its writers a Country Music Association award for Song of the Year. Randall signed to his fourth recording contract in 2005, this time with Epic Records. His first album for Epic, Walking Among the Living, was issued that year. Included among its songs were the singles "Baby Won't You Come Home" and "I Shouldn't Do This", as well as Randall's own rendition of "Whiskey Lullaby". In 2006, he married singer-songwriter Jessi Alexander, shortly before both she and Randall were dropped from their labels. In 2008, Gary Allan released the single "She's So California", which Randall and Allan co-wrote with Jaime Hanna of Hanna-McEuen. Randall also co-wrote The Lost Trailers' 2009 single "All This Love." In addition, he produced Dierks Bentley's 2010 album Up on the Ridge and co-wrote several tracks on it. Randall contributed to the 2011 tribute album to The Moody Blues, Moody Bluegrass TWO...Much Love with lead vocal on the track "Highway" and backup vocal on "Tuesday Afternoon". He co-produced John Corbett's second album Leaving Nothin' Behind and wrote 7 of the 10 songs on the album. In November 2017, it was announced that Randall, Jack Ingram and Miranda Lambert received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song for their collaborative effort "Tin Man". The song was released as a single on Lambert's sixth studio album The Weight of These Wings, peaking at No. 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart and earned Lambert an additional Grammy nomination for Best Country Solo Performance. In April 2018, "Tin Man" received the Academy of Country Music Award for Song of the Year, awarded to songwriters Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, and Jon Randall.
