Marty Stuart
Posted by cashheritage in on January 25, 2017
Five-time Grammy winner and platinum recording artist Marty Stuart is an accomplished performer, producer, writer, photographer, and country music archivist who has spent more than four decades celebrating American roots music.
His career began at age twelve when he started playing mandolin with the bluegrass group The Sullivan Family. He then moved to Nashville to join Lester Flatt & the Nashville Grass at the Grand Ole Opry. After Flatt’s passing, Stuart landed a job performing with the Johnny Cash band. After more than six years with Cash, Stuart put together his own band.
Stuart is an eclectic performer, transitioning between honky-tonk, rockabilly, traditional country and bluegrass. He is considered one of country music’s most historically minded “new” traditionalists, recording and releasing relevant music that honors country’s rich legacy while advancing it into the future.
Rolling Stone magazine calls him one of the top country music artists of all time.
His 18th studio album, Way Out West, solidifies Stuart’s widespread acclaim as a visionary artist. Released in 2017, National Public Radio praised it an “album-length paean to the myth and magic of the American West.”
Along with his career as a musician, Stuart is a longtime advocate for the preservation of country music’s rich history. Plans were announced early this year for his Congress of Country Music to be built in his hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi. The project will include a concert venue, museum and the Marty Stuart Center, an educational facility where students can learn about the wide array of available careers in the music industry.
Stuart’s personal collection includes more than 20,000 country music-related artifacts, including the last portrait of Cash (taken by Stuart four days before Cash died). His collection of musical artifacts and photography was exhibited at the Tennessee State Museum in 2007 as “Sparkle & Twang: Marty Stuart’s American Musical Odyssey.” The exhibit later appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and at the Arkansas Statehouse Museum. In 2018, Stuart co-curated, along with the Grammy Museum, an exhibit at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, entitled “Marty Stuart’s Way Out West: A Country Music Odyssey.”
Stuart is host of The Marty Stuart Show on cable’s RFD-TV and also hosts a Late Night Jam at The Ryman, a yearly tradition which kicks off the CMA Music Festival.
