Greenville native Steve Azar emerged as a nationally recognized country artist in 2001 with Waitin’ on Joe, whose title track and “I Don’t Have to Be Me (‘Til Monday)” became major hits, with the latter reaching No. 2 on the Billboard charts and earning BMI’s “Million-Air” award. Inspired at age 11 by local bluesman Eugene Powell to take up guitar, Azar drew deeply from Delta blues and later called his own music Delta Soul to reflect his broader musical and cultural influences. After graduating from Delta State University, he performed widely with the Steve Azar Band before moving to Nashville in 1991, where he developed as a songwriter and saw his songs recorded by artists including Reba McEntire. Though throat surgery interrupted his recording career, he returned with Indianola in 2006 on the Ride Records label, which he co-founded, and later released other acclaimed work including Slide On Over Here and Delta Soul, Vol. 1. Back in Greenville with his family by 2011, Azar became active in Mississippi cultural life through teaching, broadcasting, documentary narration, charitable fundraising for children through the Steve Azar St. Cecilia Foundation, and promotion of the state’s artistic heritage. In 2017 Governor Phil Bryant named him Mississippi’s Music & Culture Ambassador, a role that included writing the official bicentennial song “One Mississippi,” and in 2018 his service to his home state was recognized with the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Governor’s Choice Award.
