Steven Noel Wariner was born on Christmas Day of 1954 in Noblesville, Indiana. Influenced at an early age by George Jones and Chet Atkins, Wariner started performing in his father's band, and later moved on to playing in local clubs. By age 17, he had been hired by Dottie West as a bass guitarist, and played on her single "Country Sunshine". He also worked with Glen Campbell, who he has cited as a major influence on his work.

1991 saw the release of Wariner's first album for Arista Records. Entitled I Am Ready, this was also the first album of his career to be certified gold for shipping 500,000 copies in the United States. Singles from it included "Leave Him Out of This", "The Tips of My Fingers" (a cover of Bill Anderson's 1960 single), "A Woman Loves", "Crash Course in the Blues" and "Like a River to the Sea". These first three singles were all Top 10 hits. In 1992, Wariner received his first Grammy Award, for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, as a guest vocalist and guitarist alongside Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and fiddler Mark O'Connor on the single "Restless", a No. 25-peaking single from O'Connor's album The New Nashville Cats. He also collaborated with O'Connor on the No. 71-peaking "Now It Belongs to You" on the same album.  His second album for Arista was 1993's Drive. Leading off this album was the Top 10 "If I Didn't Love You". After it came the Top 30 hits "Drivin' and Cryin'" and "It Won't Be Over You", although the album's title track stopped at No. 63. Wariner, along with Lee Roy Parnell and Diamond Rio, recorded a cover of Merle Haggard's "Workin' Man's Blues" as the fictional band Jed Zeppelin for the late-1994 tribute album Mama's Hungry Eyes: A Tribute to Merle Haggard. This cover peaked at No. 48 and was made into a music video. A year later, Wariner contributed a cover of the song "Get Back" to Come Together: America Salutes The Beatles, a tribute album which included country music covers of songs by The Beatles. His rendition charted at No. 72 on the country charts and was also a music video shot primarily at Union Station in Nashville.  An instrumental album, No More Mr. Nice Guy followed in 1996. His final Arista release, it produced no singles, although one of the tracks, "Brickyard Boogie", was nominated for Best Country Instrumental at the 1997 Grammy Awards. This track was a collaboration with Bryan White, Jeffrey Steele, Bryan Austin and former Pearl River guitarist Derek George. Despite exiting Arista in 1997, Wariner made a guest appearance along with Mac McAnally in the music video for Sawyer Brown's 1997 single "This Night Won't Last Forever", a cover of the Michael Johnson song.

What is Arista Records?
release of Wariner's first album for Arista Records.