LITTLE ROCK — For a small-town guy from the Mississippi Delta, the chance to open not just one night, but the whole tour for Bob Seger, was a dream come true. So says Steve Azar, who'll be floating into central Arkansas for one of his biggest shows yet, this time in front of family and friends Saturday night at Alltel Arena.
Azar's Arkansas family comes courtesy of his many collegiate gigs around the South, which sometimes took him to Fayetteville, a city he praises for its beauty, and not just because he met his future wife there.
"I've been married for 17 years to a Conway girl, Gwen Nabholz," Azar says. "She was a Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, and my band, which I started when I was attending Delta State University, played for themand elsewhere around the town of Fayetteville, so I've got some 'hog blood' in me, you could say. And I do a lot of benefits with John Daly, one of the more famous Arkansas sports figures."
His golfing skills, Azar adds, have earned him the No. 4 position on Golf Digest magazine's ratings of the top 100 golfing musicians, with saxophonist Kenny G at the top and singer Vince Gill in second place. Marty Roe of Diamond Rio is third.
Azar grew up in Greenville, Miss., and proudly notes that he's providing music for an in-theworks documentary on the making of a new bridge across the Mississippi River.
"My dad was one of the first people to cross the original toll bridge that ran between Greenville and Lake Village," Azar says. "So it's been pretty moving for me to get involved. I've gotten to use a lot of the songs I've written during my career, which has been very Delta-oriented. And I recently got to climb to the top of the new bridge, where I was 432 feet above the river."
The 42-year-old Azar - who plays slide guitar, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitars - grew up listening to the old bluesmen who played behind his father's liquor store, and absorbing influences that have given Azar a combination of blues, soul and country sounds that have put him somewhat outside the commercial country mainstream in Nashville, Tenn., where he, his wife and three children live.
He recently started his own record label, Dang Records, and willrelease a new CD, Indianola, in the next month or so, although it is being sold at the Seger shows he and his five-man band are opening. He has scored in the past with "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" and "Waitin' on Joe," which had a video that featured fellow Mississippian Morgan Freeman.
Azar's connections to the central Arkansas music scene go way back, as he recalls playing Juanita's and its legendary predecessor, the S.O.B.
"I feel like I'm a cat, with nine lives," he says. "Little Milton once gave me some advice, that a life playing music was like a roller coaster, and it's down most of the time, but the moments when it's up will lift your spirits, and give you a ray of hope to keep you going."
Weekend, Pages 77 on 02/09/2007