So when Stewart had been at the rehearsal for half an hour, he asked “Where’s Teena Marie?” — when she had already been there quite awhile.
Right away, “Our chemistry was good,” Stewart said. “It just gelled right then and there. I was so amazed she could sing like that.”
That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted right up to Marie’s untimely death in December at age 54. Stewart played on Marie’s recordings and at her concerts off and on from 1979 until 2003. They played in a number of area venues, including Riverbend and the University of Dayton Arena, he said.
“I played on almost all of her major hits, like ‘Portuguese Love,’ and I wrote songs with her “like ‘Sugar Shack’ ... she liked my acoustic piano playing,” Stewart said.
Stewart, a Middletown native, had trained at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and had moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, when he began doing session work.
Stewart played with a number of other greats over the years, including Billy Preston, Rick James and Bo Diddley. But Marie, especially, meant a lot to Stewart. The two got along famously, and Marie presented Stewart with one of her gold records, for her album “It Must Be Magic.”
“She was a wonderful person and had a wonderful spirit. She was very gifted, very talented, and loved and respected good musicians,” Stewart said.
Having grown weary of the road, Stewart stopped touring after 2003, and returned to Middletown, where he has been a teacher’s assistant at Middletown High School for about five years. However, he stayed in touch with Marie.
The last time Stewart saw her in person at a concert last August, it was from a different perspective: in the audience.
“That was awesome. She just won over the crowd and was just spectacular,” he said.
Stewart took it particularly hard when he learned Marie died last month of causes that remain undetermined. He flew out to California to console members of her family.
“Her legacy was that we all one in spirit. God showed me there are no racial barriers. We were just sister and brother,” Stewart said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.
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