Riding the Twang
4/2/2025 12AM
Marty Stuart keeps classic country flame alive
By Scott Hall
Marty Stuart is a unique figure in today’s country music world, a sort of rebel traditionalist who keeps pushing the envelope but never loses sight of the rich cultural mix that surrounded him as an instrumental prodigy growing up in the South.
“What I loved about it was that it was imperative to bring who and what you were, and where you came from, to the table, and that’s what gave country music such a vibrant scene,” says the Country Music Hall of Famer and five-time Grammy winner. “Bill Monroe brought his music from Kentucky. There was Johnny Cash from Arkansas, Willie (Nelson) from Texas. All those people brought stories and songs and who they were from home, and it made a really interesting family table. Now, it’s a much more homogenized culture. There were some authentic folk heroes around when I was getting started.”
A native of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the 66-year-old Stuart was just 13 when he began playing mandolin for bluegrass legend Lester Flatt. By age 21, he was touring and recording with Johnny Cash.
Cash’s career was at a low point during that period, but the young player learned a lot from the Man in Black.
“He was the most fiercely creative individual I ever knew,” Stuart says. “If he wrote a song, or if he had an idea in his mind, and nobody responded or nobody cared but him, it didn’t matter. He followed his heart and his muse, and nothing stood in the way of that.”
Since the turn of the century, much of Stuart’s work has involved his band, the Fabulous Superlatives: hotshot guitarist Kenny Vaughan, drummer Harry Stinson, and since 2015, bassist Chris Scruggs, grandson of banjo icon Earl Scruggs. With Stuart on guitar and mandolin, the group is known for sweet vocal harmonies and hot picking informed by bluegrass, rockabilly, Bakersfield-style honky tonk and basic rock ’n’ roll.
“It’s the band of a lifetime, and I am so spoiled, because this band is so fun to work with,” he says. “We don’t argue. We play music. We love each other. We’re brothers.”
Flying with the Byrds
The Superlatives took an interesting side trip a few years ago when they went on tour backing Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of the Byrds to mark the 50th anniversary of their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. A commercial dud at the time, the album saw the pioneers of psychedelic folk-rock take a hard turn into classic country music, kick-starting the country-rock wave that spawned the Eagles and other highly successful ventures.
“The Byrds were a part of all of our lives,” Stuart says. “To be able to run alongside Roger and Chris and bring those songs to life in a whole fresh way – and especially with the Sweetheart of the Rodeo record being the centerpiece of the get-together – it was magic every single night. That experience stands in my mind as one of the highlights of this band’s whole existence.”
To this day, Stuart’s favorite guitar is the battered 1954 Fender Telecaster played by Byrds guitarist Clarence White in that era, with a built-in mechanism that bends the B string to simulate a pedal steel guitar. “It’s a band member,” Stuart says of the one-of-a-kind instrument, which he purchased from White’s widow in 1980.
The Byrds influence was apparent on the Superlatives’ most recent album, 2023’s Altitude, with 12-string guitars and sitar sounds adding a cosmic air to the mix. But true to form, the band’s next effort will be something completely different. Titled Space Junk and set for release on Record Store Day, April 12, the album is a collection of original instrumental tunes.
“Me and the Superlatives thought that the world needed a fresh instrumental project,” Stuart says, “so we wrote 20 instrumentals and took them to the microphones, and I love this record.”
Stuart is especially proud that the album will feature artwork by trumpeter Herb Alpert, who is a painter and sculptor in addition to being the king of chart-topping instrumental music: “He’s one of the coolest of all time.”
The Congress of Country Music
Aside from recording and touring, Stuart is on a mission to preserve the legacy of the music he loves.
An avid collector of memorabilia, he has amassed some 20,000 items relevant to the history of country music: Cash’s first black stage suit, Patsy Cline’s makeup kit and Hank Williams’ handwritten lyrics to “I Saw the Light,” to name a few. Select pieces have been displayed across the Western world, but now Stuart is developing a cultural center in his hometown of Philadelphia, with a special focus on Mississippi artists.
Dubbed “Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music,” the complex includes a performance venue that opened two years ago and has been hosting concerts to support the broader initiative. In December, ground was broken on a museum and educational space expected to open in 2027. In conjunction, Stuart has partnered with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville to maintain his personal collection and collaborate on exhibitions and programming.
“It is a cultural center dedicated to the preservation and furtherance of country music in the Magnolia State,” Stuart explains. “The museum part will be stocked from my collection, and we’ll have access to the entire Country Music Hall of Fame collection as well, so there will always be fresh exhibits – past, present, current artists. We also have access to their educational programs, so it’s just an unparalleled partnership.”
With all these irons in the fire, what is the common thread among Stuart’s various endeavors?
“Twang,” he says without hesitation. “Just ride the twang.”
Can you elaborate on that?
“I was raised by some pretty authentic characters, and anything less-than feels less-than to me. It’s wonderful when the real deal comes along,” he says. “Authenticity is in the eyes, ears and heart of the beholder, but my version is that I know who I was raised by, musically, and those are the standards.”
