Stevens returns for Nashville Hitmakers show Saturday evening
BY NIKKI BURKHAMER
Examiner Contributor
Even Stevens, a homegrown, Indian Lake celebrity, doesn’t monkey around when it comes to supporting where he came from. For 12 years, The Nashville Hitmakers event has been used as an effort to support the Indian Lake Watershed Project and The Indian Lake High School’s Music Department.
The event returns to the Indian Lake High School stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17. Tickets can still be purchased at (937) 935-9324 for Will Call pickup, or tickets can also be purchased at the door.
Even, who is part of the National Songwriters Hall of Fame, reminisced about his years growing up in Lewistown and the Lake area.
“I grew up in Lewistown. I couldn’t wait for summer so I could ride my bike to the lake every day. I’d go to Beatley’s and Fox Island. We had boats on Dunce Island. There was nothing to do in Lewistown. The Lake was magic,” he said with a smile.
When he attended Indian Lake High School he starred as the lead in the production called “Tom Sawyer,” and he was cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a production of “A Christmas Carol.” Stevens laughed as he recalled those high-school, stage memories.
He spoke with concern about the March 2024 tornado that devastated the lake area and recalled the overgrowth of weeds that invaded the lake recently.
“The Indian Lake Watershed Project helped with the tornado recovery and when the weeds were a problem. It took a lot of money to deal with those situations,” he noted.
Over a period of 20 years, Even wrote over 900 songs with Eddie Rabbitt, a Grammy Award winning country singer. He and Rabbitt “sat down to write every day but Sundays for many years,” Stevens said.
When asked how he met Eddie, he had quite a story to tell.
“I met him at a party in an old apartment building in Nashville. We were talking, and he looked out of the window then asked, ‘Is that your truck down there?’
“Yes, I said.”
Eddie then asked Stevens if he would help him move on the next day. So, he used his old Jeep to help Eddie Rabbit move.
“I drove that old mail Jeep down to Nashville without any money to put gas in it,” he recalled.
Later on that day, Rabbit said, “Your truck looks perfect for my monkey cage.”
But, when Even saw the monkey and the cage, he had no intention of letting him put that inside the back of his old Jeep.
“I slept in there, sometimes. There was no way he was putting that monkey cage inside my mail truck,” Stevens insisted.
So, Stevens and Eddie Rabbit put the cage on top of the old mail truck and held on to it as Stevens drove to his friend’s new place.
“Keep in mind the mail truck had the steering wheel on the other side!” He recalled with laughter.
“Eddie was on his way up at the time, he had just had a hit entitled ‘Kentucky Rain’ that he recorded with Elvis, but Eddie and I became friends long before we started writing songs together. Then one day, we just sat down and started writing. It was easy… like we always had been writing songs together. We knew we had a good thing going. We each had our differences, and I think that’s needed when you come together as a songwriting team,” he shared.
Similarly, in the early 1980s, Kenny Rogers contacted Stevens to come up with a song for Six Pack, a movie Rogers was working on with Diane Lane.
“Kenny was in Kentucky somewhere. So, David Malloy and I rented a bus and drove the whole way there writing a song for him. The driver took a wrong turn, and we were a little late. When we got there Kenny wanted to hear what I had so I began to play, and he stopped me,” Stevens recalled.
That’s when Kenny Rogers hummed a lick from the song he had in mind. So, during the concert that he was giving that night, he and Malloy had to hum the melody to each other so they would not forget it. They took that tune and pretty immediately turned it into the popular song known as “Love Will Turn You Around.”
Within a day and a half, Steven went to record the song with Rogers, Malloy, and Thom Schuyler. That song won a Grammy Award for “Best Male Country Performance,” and it reached number one on both the country and adult contemporary charts in 1982.
This Saturday, several talented people will take stage at Indian Lake High School at 7:00 p.m. Usually, 800 to 1,000 people take in the yearly event.
Stevens spoke about how Tom Schuyler, one of Saturday’s performers, worked to help him build his first production studio. The Emerald Sound Studio was Malloy’s and Stevens’s creation, and that studio was one of the best production studios around for years.
“Tom was hanging a ceiling fan, and my secretary told me he was a songwriter that had some really good songs,” Stevens recalled.
“We decided to have a meeting with him,” Stevens rendered, “and we hired him immediately.”
Schuyler, not only a songwriter but a former president of RCA records, will be playing this weekend at the show. He is in The National Song Writers Hall of Fame.
Rafe Van Hoy, who has also been inducted in the National Song Writers Hall of Fame will be performing this Saturday, as well, and so will Mike Loudermilk.
“Mike is the only performer who has been with us at Hitmakers every year,” Stevens bragged, “He hasn’t made the Hall of Fame, yet, but he will.”
Allison Prestwood, who is the top bass player in Nashville, will be playing Saturday, as well as James Slater, who is “unbelievable on the grand piano; he plays for everybody in their sessions,” Stevens boasted of him.
Stevens mentioned his sister Sandy Helgeson many times. She plans and produces the entire event every year as well as writes everything included in the program.
“She puts the show together every year,” he said as he explained that it was her husband Dave, a former Indian Lake Park Ranger, who made Even aware of the financial needs of the Indian Lake Watershed Project.
“We’ve enjoyed nearly three dozen or so singer/songwriters over the past years, with nearly a full auditorium/theater each time,” Sandy said. “Our citizens and summer visitors reap the benefit of this fundraiser in a very real way: enjoying the water sports and sharing lake time with their friends and family.
“Our businesses have been ultra-supportive every year, which allows us to present great talent at every event. We appreciate them so much. The show couldn’t take place without them and our wonderful audience.”
The support that Even, his concert, and their many contributors have provided is an impressive amount, but he did not want those numbers shared.
All of the graphics are printed by donation via Lyndsey McGlone from Elle A Graphics. This includes posters, flyers, and programs.
“Fion Wine Room always throws a party for us on the Friday before,” Stevens said. “For the last six years, Tom Murphy from Party Sound Productions has done the sound, and Jim from The Music Store, located in Bellefontaine, has always provided the instruments and equipment needed for the event.”
