Stevie Coyle

Stevie Coyle (late of the whiz-bang string band The Waybacks) is one lucky bum. His dad ran a radio station in southern California and brought home all the promo LPs that didn't fit the Spanish-language format. The Ventures' Guitar Freakout, The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett and Alvin And The Chipmunks Play The Beatles' Hits all came home on a single fateful day.

It didn't hurt, either, that string-meister David Lindley played in a bluegrass band that rehearsed right next door and gave Stevie his very first lessons, or that his dear Granny was a pianist in the heyday of vaudeville and that his sainted mother was a whiz in mandolin orchestras during the 1930s.

Not even several years of playing Folk Masses every Sunday could quash his musical spirit, and in high school he began fingerpicking, inspired - as so many were - by that first Hot Tuna album.

After securing degrees in Theatre and Theology at Santa Clara University, he hit the road for 3 years with The Royal Lichtenstein Circus. Once back home, he signed on as actor and stage manager for The San Jose Repertory Company. He announced killer whale shows. His best friend was an elephant.

He and his good pal Roy Zimmerman have worked closely in several collaborations over the past 25 years, including folk tribute / parody band The Foremen and comedy duo The Reagan Bros. who played regularly at The Improv and The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. Stevie appeared on Cheers and in many television commercials, and had a regular role on The Young And The Restless (which was utterly subsumed by then-daily broadcasts of the interminable Iran-Contra hearings.)

Safely back in the Bay Area, he continued his acting career, doing commercials, radio, voiceovers and films, and playing in folk duos The Frontmen and The Back Room Boys. In 1999 he co-founded and fronted The Waybacks and toured steadily with them from 2001 through 2007. The band released 4 albums in that time, played major festivals like Merlefest, Grey Fox, Floydfest, Great Waters, Old Settlers, Bumbershoot and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, toured Australia and collaborated with Lloyd Maines, Michelle Shocked and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead.

Until very recently, Stevie was one half of the dynamic guitar duo, The Quitters with Glenn “Houston” Pomianek. Both are founding members of The Waybacks. As individuals, both are renowned players in music circles. They were a right-handed, right-side up fingerpicking and left-handed upside down flatpicking twosome. “Mostly acoustic. Some electric. Much serendipity.”

Stevie is also a Polo in Marco and The Polos, with several of the Hellmans, the sainted family that puts on the colossal Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park every year. As of December, 2024, Stevie has resumed his solo career.