Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives

A Country Music Hall of Famer, five-time Grammy Award-winner, and AMA Lifetime Achievement honoree, Stuart knows a thing or two about standing the test of time. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Mississippi, he landed his first big gig in Lester Flatts’ band at the tender age of thirteen, and by twenty-one, he was working on the road and in the studio with Johnny Cash. Though Stuart built his early reputation backing up country and bluegrass royalty, it wasn’t long before Nashville recognized him as a star in his own right, and over the course of forty-plus years as a solo artist, he would go on to release more than twenty major label albums, scoring platinum sales, hit singles, and just about every honor the industry could bestow along the way.
“If country music had a president, it would be Marty Stuart,” famed documentarian Ken Burns once proclaimed. “He is the embodiment of the culture.”
Stuart emerged as an unofficial caretaker of the culture, too, spending much of his career rescuing and collecting country music artifacts from throughout the genre’s history. The first piece he picked up? Patsy Cline’s makeup kit, which he bought from a junk shop for $75. These days, Stuart, who Rolling Stone calls “one of the world’s foremost country experts and archivists,” has roughly 20,000 pieces in his collection, including a handwritten copy of Hank Williams’ “I Saw The Light” and Johnny Cash’s first black performance suit. While select items have been exhibited everywhere from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to the Louvre, Stuart is hard at work building a dedicated arts and cultural center to preserve and display it all in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“I’m calling it The Congress of Country Music, and I want it to serve as an inspirational spot,” says Stuart, who’s raised funds for the center with annual late night jams at the Ryman featuring everyone from Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow to Tyler Childers and Billy Strings. “I want it to be a touchstone where younger generations can learn about this stuff and figure out who they are and embark on their own musical journeys.”
It’s that last part that particularly excites Stuart, whose musical journey came full circle on Altitude. Written primarily on the road, the collection was inspired in large part by Stuart’s 2018 tour supporting Byrds co-founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, who reunited for the 50th anniversary of their seminal Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album.
“I bought my first copy of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo for $2.99 at the discount bin in a shopping mall record store in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and it became the blueprint for my musical life,” Stuart recalls. “Revisiting it on the road with Roger and Chris put me back under its spell all over again. I was writing songs in dressing rooms and soundchecks and on the bus, and then one day, I looked up and there was enough to make an album.”