Back in 2012, when Mike and the Moonpies were out plugging their second album, Hard Way, lead singer Mike Harmeier sang the praises of Gary Stewart, the hardcore country singer who scored a few hits in the mid-'70s and cultivated a cult following who believed he was the "king of the honky tonks." Stewart died in 2003, but his reputation among his true believers didn't wane, as evidenced by how Mike and the Moonpies often put his songs in their earliest sets a decade after his death. Touch of You: The Lost Songs of Gary Stewart goes one step further still. The 2020 record finds the Austin band plucking ten songs from Stewart's vault of unreleased demos, all written and recorded during the 1970s and '80s. With the guidance of Stewart's daughter Shannon and his best friend Tommy Schartz, Mike and the Moonpies whittled down their choices to a tight ten songs and the group recorded their tribute during the COVID-19 quarantine in the spring of 2020, rushing the album out on Stewart's May 28 birthday.
Sonically, Touch of You is of a piece with Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold, the 2019 album that found the Moonpies conjuring the neon-lit spirit of early-'80s country. While Touch of You is hardly as lush as Cheap Silver -- there isn't an orchestra to be heard -- Stewart's blend of barroom ravers and saloon ballads comes from a similar place of origin. Perhaps the performances aren't quite as loose and lived-in as Cheap Silver -- blame that on quarantine recordings -- but the album's vibe and spirit are warm, evoking the sound of Stewart's prime while still sounding like the Moonpies. This speaks to how the band absorbed Stewart's influence, but the nice thing about Touch of You is that there isn't a trace of sticky sentiment to the album. The Moonpies have merely chosen his best unheard tunes and then set out to play them as if they were trying to hold the attention of a rowdy crowd at a beer joint on a Saturday night. It's an entertaining gambit and it wouldn't be quite so entertaining if the album wasn't rife with good tunes. Whether it's the quietly rocking "Dance with Barbara" or the rowdy "Bottom of the Pile" or the elegant ballads "Touch of You" or "Smooth Shot of Whiskey" (the latter featuring a cameo from Midland's Mark Wystrach), these are strong additions to Stewart's official canon, and it's hard to think of a better tribute to the king of honky tonks than expanding his songbook the way Mike and the Moonpies do with this fine album.