As one of the brightest and most prolific new songwriters to emerge from the Birmingham music scene over the past few years, Will Stewart has made a name for himself as both an imaginative storyteller and six string gunslinger whose detailed accounts of life around the Deep South seem to capture the essence of not just the humid, kudzu-covered environs they come out of, but also the creative cultural milieu that makes such narratives possible in the first place. Taking cues from everyone from Big Star and R.E.M., to Phosphorescent and the Drive-By Truckers, and even classic Southern literary figures like Eudora Welty and Barry Hannah, Stewart has managed to carve out a place for himself as a conjurer of time, place and characters— and the stories that swirl around them— in a way that’s simultaneously reflective, empathetic and unapologetic in their presentation.
Now on his fourth solo LP, over his past three studio efforts Stewart has shown a deft touch for not just engaging character arcs and succinct studies in the human condition, but also a range of musical modes that span everything from quiet dissertations on love and loss, to brash rockers and moody explorations of the complicated nature of modern Southern living. As someone who also wears the hat of a highly sought after sideman who lends his talents to friends and fellow travelers like Birmingham locals The Blips, Terry Ohms and Sarah Lee Langford, there are few sonic spaces that Stewart’s hands haven’t touched in some way, whether it’s blasting out amped-up garage rock or eliciting evocative and hushed guitar stylings for his longtime collaborator Janet Simpson.
Releasing his first album on local Birmingham label Earth Libraries after several years working with Cornelius Chapel Records, Stewart’s newest offering sees him poised to deliver his most ambitious project yet, with a 10-track song cycle centered around the iconic, and now defunct, Moon Winx Lodge in Tuscaloosa, AL, and some of the characters and scenarios— both real and imagined— that have played themselves out there over the years. Weaving a compelling through line that simultaneously ties together true historical events— like the time Alabama jazz legend Sun Ra stayed at the lodge during a legendary three night run at The Chukker and the Arkestra were seen trying the white bread and ribs at Dreamland BBQ— with made-up personas and human drama that exists only in Stewart’s imagined mythology, Moon Winx threads the needle between fact and fiction like the best in Southern literature, and all wrapped up in the geographical vernacular of rock, country and rhythm and blues.
Kicking things off with the chronically addled and romantically reckless “Penny,” the LP careens from ecstatic to serene, comical and sad, and otherworldly and oppressive in equal measure, as Stewart takes full stock of the lodge’s unique clientele. From the hazy Tom Waits-inspired atmospherics of “Mighty Fine,” to the juiced up JJ Cale blues boogie of “Firebird Fever,” the early Wilco/hipster dad rock of “Regulars,” or the updated, ambient take on the Velvets/Modern Lovers odes to the power of the FM dial on “Til We Hear The Radio,” the album sometimes reads more like a collection of short stories set to music than your standard rock LP, which is all part of its charm and allure. And starting in 2025, people can finally step into Stewart’s world themselves, and bring their own impressions as to the who/what/why and where of life at the Moon Winx Lodge, which is how it should be and all part of the fun anyway.
As Flannery Conner once famously wrote in Wise Blood, “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place. Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”
And that, dear reader, is exactly the space where the Moon Winx Lodge has resided all along.
Words by Lee Shook (@theaudiovore)