For multiple Grammy, CMA, ACM Award-winning producer Keith Stegall, music has always been his life, strongly influenced by his dad, 1950s Abbott Records recording artist, Bob Stegall. The elder Stegall also played steel guitar for the legendary country singer Johnny Horton. Born in the central Texas town of Wichita Falls and raised in Shreveport (the home of the Louisiana Hayride, a stage his father often graced) the Stegalls were constantly playing and writing songs on guitars and the piano. It was by chance he met another famous Texan, Kris Kristofferson, who inspired Keith to move to Music City. “Show me what you’ve got!” Kris told Keith backstage at a Kristofferson show. Keith played a couple songs, which prompted Kristofferson to remark, “Son, you need to get your ass to Nashville and hang out with other writers. They will break you down and make you the best you can be.”

Keith took the advice to heart and three months after his arrival in 1978, Keith co-wrote his first hit, Dr. Hooks’ 1980 smash Sexy Eyes. Soon after, Helen Reddy, The Commodores, Johnny Mathis, and many others rushed to record Keith’s songs. Most notable was Al Jarreau’s career hit We’re In This Love Together. Eventually Keith signed a record deal with Capitol Records and later Epic Records. He released a pair of albums in the early 1980s with minor chart success. “Because I grew up in the studio,” Keith recalls, “the mistake I made was that they told me to produce myself.” The upside, he says, was he learned how to produce other artists by producing himself.

In the midst of trying to get his own artist career off the ground, a struggling nightclub singer named Randy Ray asked Keith to produce an independent album to sell at his local gigs. The project led to Keith producing the standout songs On The Other Hand and Reasons I Cheat on the singer’s epochal debut, “Storms of Life,” under the singer’s new moniker... Randy Travis. The success of “Storms of Life” convinced Keith that a life behind the scenes was more suited for him. “I wasn’t able to accomplish what I wanted to do until I became a producer,” Keith says. “When I did, I told myself, ‘this is where I belong.'”

Meanwhile, a friend and songwriting partner asked Keith to produce a tape to play for record companies in hopes of getting a record deal. That friend, Alan Jackson, would go on to sell over 50 million records and have 35 number one hits with Keith in the producer’s chair. Keith continued collaborating with Jackson, co-writing such hits as Don’t Rock The Jukebox and Dallas.

In 1992, Keith received an offer to head Mercury Nashville’s A&R department and a chance to release another album as an artist. “I thought, ‘this is not my gig,’ I’ve spent half my life fighting with record labels,” recalled Keith. “Alan (Jackson) himself had told me, ‘Half the reason I wanted to work with you is that you are an artist and you understand.” So reminiscent of Chet Atkins years earlier at RCA, Keith became an artist and executive at Mercury Records. His subsequent 1996 Mercury debut “Passages” was critically acclaimed.

In 1997, Keith teamed up with legendary songwriter Dan Hill (Sometimes When We Touch). The collaboration quickly yielded two number one records: Sammy Kershaw’s Love Of My Life and Mark Wills’ I Do (Cherish You). Shortly after Wills recorded I Do, the platinum selling pop act 98 Degrees heard the song and included it on their sophomore album 98 Degrees And Rising, as well as on the soundtrack to the 1999 Julia Roberts film Notting Hill. The song became one of the group’s biggest hits reaching the top 5 in the CHR and AC charts.

The year 1999 saw Stegall working with country music legend George Jones. The album, Cold Hard Truth went Gold and included the Grammy Award-winning track, Choices. Three more albums with Jones followed including an album featuring another country music legend, Merle Haggard.

In late 2006, Keith was invited to a show by an unsigned band out of Georgia called the Zac Brown Band. According to Stegall, “Zac had been passed around Nashville a little bit. He had been Nashville’d to death.” Just as he’d been for Alan Jackson, Stegall was the absolutely ideal producer and mentor for the Zac Brown Band. Seemingly countering all the 2008 Music Row rules and conventional wisdom, the first nine singles went to No. 1 on the country charts. Three platinum albums and millions of single downloads quickly followed. The group’s third album, Uncaged, earned Keith and the group a Grammy Award for Country Album of the Year. In 2015, Stegall launched Dreamlined Entertainment, a company specializing in artist development and record label services. Currently, he is working on a new project with Alan Jackson, as well as up and coming talented artists including William Michael Morgan, Bradley Gaskin and Makayla Lynn. Keith Stegall has the exact same passion as he always has, he keeps right on painting outside the lines to bring country fans, radio, and artists some of the greatest music they’ve ever experienced.

Awards

● Grammy Awards

○ 2013 Country Album of the Year - Uncaged by the Zac Brown Band (Producer)

○ 2010 Best Country Collaboration - “As She’s Walking Away” (Producer)

● CMA Awards

○ 2002 CMA Album of the Year - Drive by Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 2002 CMA Single of the Year - “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning) by

Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 1994 Album of the Year - Common Thread: The Songs Of The Eagles (Producer)

○ 1993 Single of the Year - “Chattahoochee” by Alan Jackson (Producer)

● ACM Awards

○ 2010 Vocal Event of the Year - “As She’s Walking Away” (Producer)

○ 2003 Single of the Year - “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” by Alan Jackson and Jimmy

Buffet (Producer)

○ 2003 Vocal Event of the Year - “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” by Alan Jackson and

Jimmy Buffet (Producer)

○ 2002 Album of the Year - Drive by Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 2001 Single of the Year - “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)” by Alan

Jackson (Producer)

○ 1993 Single of the Year - “Chattahoochee” by Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 1993 Album of the Year - A Lot About Livin’ (And A Little ‘Bout Love) by Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 1991 Album of the Year - Don’t Rock the Jukebox by Alan Jackson (Producer)

○ 1991 Single of the Year - “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” by Alan Jackson (Producer/Writer)

○ 1986 Album of the Year - Storms of Life by Randy Travis (Producer)

○ 1986 Single of the Year - “On The Other Hand” by Randy Travis (Producer)

● BMI Awards