06/21/2026
Jeffrey Steele has written the soundtrack to many people's lives with his universal lyrics and catchy melodies. For the past 45 years, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer has intertwined his life within the lyrics of his songs. The tragedy of losing his father and son (Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most," Steven Wilson Jr.'s "Grief is Only Love") and his teenage years spent in rock bands (Rascal Flatts' "These Days," Montgomery Gentry's "Hell Yeah") are several examples.
When asked if he remembers the first song he wrote, he recites the lyrics from "Hell Yeah," a top five country song Steele penned with Craig Wiseman. Take me back to when the music hit me / Life was good and love was easy, he sings.
Steele, born Jeffrey LeVasseur, penned his first song at age eight. The love song, titled "I'm Yours," was a glimpse into his future career. Maybe, I'm right, maybe I'm wrong / To be giving my love to you for so long / But if the love is there and you really care, I'm yours, he sings. He also wrote his own jingle for Mr. Coffee as a kid, unimpressed with the product.
"I played it for my sister, and she's like, 'Oh, my God, it's so good!'" he tells American Songwriter. "I remember she loved it and was freaking out about it."
Music was at the forefront of the LeVasseur household. Steele's older brother was in a band and invited him onstage as a child. He sang Hoyt Axton's "Joy to the World," a song that Three Dog Night made famous, eight times after many standing ovations. At family gatherings, his parents had him sing Elvis Presley songs on a milk crate.
The youngest of five children, Steele recalls peeking in to watch his oldest brother's piano lessons. Since the family couldn't afford for each child to take lessons, he'd watch where his brother put his hand for each note. Seeing his son's early love of music, Steele's father bought him a Magnus Chord Organ, and he quickly learned the notes and chords.
"I was learning theory," he says. "I was learning how chords and notes circled each other. I was learning the math of music without even knowing what I was doing. By the time I was 15, I was playing in these progressive rock bands that were doing all these crazy time signatures, and I was playing Gazzarri's on the strip in Hollywood and all these rock clubs."
Steele, who grew up in Hollywood, California, in the 1970s, played the rock club circuit alongside Van Halen. While his father tried introducing him to the music of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson, it wasn't until Steele witnessed Dwight Yoakam and Los Lobos live that he caught the country bug.
Soon, Steele was playing country gigs in Bakersfield, covering Haggard. He gravitated to the country-roots scene his father urged him to listen to and performed in the band at the famous Palomino Club alongside Buddy Miller and future Boy Howdy bandmate Cary Park. He fondly recalls his time at the Palomino Club, where Yoakam, Mick Fleetwood, Buck Owens, Linda Ronstadt, Travis Tritt, and Eddie Van Halen frequented.
"It was like a musical college for me," he says. "I was always writing songs."
During this time, Steele's circle included Yoakam, Dave Alvin, and Lucinda Williams. He says the music was "so real" and likened it to Haggard.
"I was coming from such a complicated musical background, and I was bathing in the simplicity of space," he explains. "I was still this rock guy at heart. So, I was trying to figure out how to blend all this stuff I was hearing in my head, melodically and musically. I was trying to blend it into country with the lyrics that I was loving to write."
Steele admits it was a slow transition from rock to country songwriting until he met his future Boy Howdy bandmates. A bar band performing throughout Los Angeles, Boy Howdy needed a bass player and a singer, so Steele joined the group. One of his first songs for Boy Howdy was "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," a traditional song that Steele rewrote in "John Cougar style." The song caught the attention of Curb Records. The day after then-CEO Dick Whitehouse saw the band live, he offered them a record deal.
Whitehouse sent Steele to Nashville to do some writes. During his first trip to Music City, he penned "She'd Give Anything," Boy Howdy's breakthrough hit that peaked at No. 4 on the country charts. David Foster later produced the song for Gerald Levert, who saw success on the R&B and pop charts with the cover. As the band enjoyed success, tragedy struck.
"I've had so much tragedy in my life," Steele says. "The drummer got hit in a car accident right after we had this big, gigantic hit single. After eight years in the clubs, we finally made it. We finally got one on the radio, and he got into an accident, and it literally was the end of the band."
Continue reading our full interview with Steele in the comments below.
