1. Billy Stewart was 12 years old when he began singing with his younger brothers Johnny, James, and Frank as the Four Billy Stewart Brothers, and they later went on to get their own radio show every Sunday for five years at WUST in Washington, DC He was a graduate of Armstrong High School, now Friendship Armstrong Academy.
Billy Stewart made the transition to secular music by filling in occasionally for the Rainbows, a DC area vocal group led by the future soul star, Don Covay.
Rock and roller Bo Diddley has been credited with discovering Billy Stewart playing piano in Washington, DC, and inviting him to be one of his backup musicians.
Major chart success was not far away and in 1965, Billy Stewart recorded two self-written songs, "I Do Love You", which featured his brother Johnny Billy Stewart as one of the backing vocalists with his partner James English, and "Sitting in the Park".
Billy Stewart continued to record throughout the remainder of the 1960s on Chess without major success.
Billy Stewart suffered minor injuries in a motorcycle accident in 1969.
Billy Stewart's weight caused him several health problems, culminating in diabetes, a condition that may have contributed to his automobile accident in 1969.
Billy Stewart died in a broad-daylight car accident in January 1970, at age 32.
The accident happened when the Ford Thunderbird that Billy Stewart was driving approached a bridge across the Neuse River near Smithfield, North Carolina.
Billy Stewart's car left the highway, ran along the median strip at a slight angle to the highway, struck the bridge abutment, and then plunged into the river, killing Stewart and his three passengers instantly.
Billy Stewart was buried in National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland.
Billy Stewart was inducted into the Washington Area Music Association Hall of Fame in 2002.
Billy Stewart's musical legacy is being kept alive by several talented family members in his hometown of Washington DC Cousins Grace Ruffin who is a member of the '60s group The Four Jewels, singer and musician Calvin C Ruffin Jr.
In Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Billy Stewart's "Summertime" is featured in a scene where Brad Pitt's character, Cliff Booth, leaves his home and erratically drives off into the twilight.