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Call Me JT

The pandemic didn’t slow down the Texas native and Austin-based songwriter, Justin Stewart. Surpassing a vision he had in 2013 to record 3 records within a decade, Stewart suggests he had his process in his pocket during the spacious lock-down with the 2023 release of his 4th record, Call Me JT.

This Texas power pop collection is the “fruit of my pandemic experience,” Stewart says. He crowd-funded the record through Kickstarter then teamed with the ace producer Michael Ramos (Paul Simon, Charanga Cakewalk, John Mellencamp) to bring the songs to life. Stewart enjoyed sharing the process of making the special record through weekly updates to his patrons, an agreement he made to those who invested.

It was recorded live at Electric Deluxe Recorders in East Austin in November of 2021. Additional sessions were held at Brown Recluse Studio where is was deemed complete in the spring of 2022. Available now digitally and on vinyl at JustinStewartMusic.com.

Engineered by Aaron Glemboski. Players include Glen Fukunaga, Chris Searles, Michael Ramos, David Grisson.

Justin’s Story

Stewart grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast. He lived with his mother and brother in Houston. A childhood neighbor had a piano and Justin asked her questions that led to years of lessons that he would one day transfer to the guitar. He spent every summer in Galveston with his grandfather where he worked at the family bait camp at San Luis Pass. He developed a strong affinity for the ‘salt life’, including a love of seafood and surfing.

He played in bands through college (Last Free Exit, Austin Traffic Jam) offering his feverish tenor-voiced prose to meandering songs. He grew interested in human patterns and pursued urban planning in grad school. After graduating from the University of Texas School of Architecture, Stewart toured the Gulf Coast for years planning disaster recoveries (hurricanes, flooding rivers and oil spills) and learning to distill his poetry.

He became a certified urban planner in 2014 and now works for the City of Austin stitching together parkland greenbelts through the city, at times overcoming interstate highways and siloed developments. Now often starting from haiku and dreamlike folk lore, this artist weaves the urbane with the rural and the inner journey with the outer journey, striving for authentic progression.