Welcome home, Steve Wariner

By JANET HART LEONARD
For The Reporter

There will always be a connection to an old friend you grew up with. Time does not erase memories. A simple “remember when?” takes you back to that place, to what you saw and felt.

A few days ago, I had an over-hour-long conversation with a friend from high school. He grew up in Noblesville and, for a while, lived just down the street from me. While I live on the same street where I grew up, and only the locals know my name, he has traveled the world and become famous.

He is none other than the Country Music Hall of Fame singer, songwriter, and guitarist Steve Wariner. I also need to mention that Steve is quite an accomplished artist.

On Feb. 21, he will return home to entertain his friends, schoolmates, and our community at the Carmel Palladium. It promises to be a night to remember! It will feel like a class reunion for many of his Noblesville High School friends.

If, for some reason, you do not know about his success, let me inform you: 14 No. 1 hits. More than 30 Top 10 Singles, four Grammy awards. Voted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry.

Steve has written for Garth Brooks (“Longneck Bottle”), Clint Black (“Nothin’ But the Taillights” and “Been There”), and Keith Urban (Where the Blacktop Ends”).

He is one of only five guitar players worldwide to receive the legendary Chet Atkins’s “Certified Guitar Player” award. He hired Steve as his bass player and signed him to his first recording contract with RCA Records.

He has his own signature model, Gretsch guitar.

But here’s the thing: Steve is still the same nice guy I knew in high school. He left NHS in his senior year when Dottie West discovered him while he was 17, playing guitar for a band in an Indianapolis bar. Talk about quite the adventure for a small-town boy. A dream about which movies are written.

Steve and I sat across from each other in Newswriting Class, with Mrs. Beba Kennedy as our teacher. We wrote for the Millstream Newspaper. Steve was quiet but always wore a sweet smile – he still has that smile. I had no idea I would one day be able to say, “I knew him when.”

While we chatted on the phone, we went down memory lane to Grant Street, Grandpa’s Candy Store, and Memorial Football Field, where North Elementary is located. We remembered walking home from school at lunchtime as the schools did not have cafeterias. We did not walk five miles, but we did walk to school in the snow. Only the kids in the country rode buses.

Steve’s small-town upbringing has stayed with him throughout the years. He appreciates how he was raised and has passed his beliefs about life to his sons, as well as his gift of music, art, and creativity. His son Ryan is a musician with Ann Wilson and the band Heart. He also writes songs. His son Ross is in L.A. working on video game creations (Two Dots) and in the movie and film industry.

His wife, Caryn, has always kept the home fires burning in Tennessee and is quite the master quilter. Steve wrote the song “I Should Be With You” while he was on a red-eye flight back from L.A. Caryn was pregnant and due any day. She went into labor a few hours after he returned home.

My favorite Steve Wariner song is “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” but, running close, is “Two Tear Drops,” “Your Memory,” “I’m Already Taken” and so many others. Go to your favorite music place to listen, and you will thank me if you don’t already love his music.

Something Steve said to me while we were talking on the phone has inspired an upcoming column for the Hamilton County Reporter …

Steve told me, “Now when I am asked to do something, I ask myself, ‘Will this make me smile?’”

There is so much wisdom in that thought. Stay tuned.

In talking with Steve, I realized that part of his heart will always be in Noblesville. He made it to the big stage, but his heart is still that of a small-town boy.

Welcome home, Steve! Your friends are so proud of you and look forward to a night we will always remember!

Thank you, Steve, for going with me down memory lane so I could write this article. You share stories through your songs, while I share stories in a newspaper. And to think, it all started in a high school journalism class where we wrote stories for the Millstream.

Steve, my friend, as I told you … I still have your very first album.

There are still some tickets available. Check the website of the Allied Solutions Center of the Performing Arts.