Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park /Friends

Big Stone Gap, VA 

Big Stone Gap, Virginia

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives!

   Headlined our 2012 Festival!

www.martystuart.net

Marty Stuart started out singing gospel as a child, did the bluegrass stint with Lester Flatt in the '70s, performed six years with Johnny Cash in the '80s, and created his smash "hillbilly rock" hits of the '90s. In recent years, he launched  a custom record label, Superlatone Records, to record overlooked Roots   music. Stuart released three critically acclaimed collections on Superlatone, Souls' Chapel, Badlands and Live at the Ryman.    Stuart is a member of the board of the Country Music Foundation, and is a past President; he has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1993.  Stewart hosts the cable network show, The Marty Stuart Show, which adds a new chapter each week to the tradition of simple, electrifying country TV with varied live sounds, and top level guests. The Marty Stuart Show is currently the number one program on the network.  In  February  2011, Stuart won his fifth GRAMMY for instrumental work on his new album, Ghost Train.  

"I'm always on the prowl for the kinds of recordings that can inspire and potentially make a difference," Stuart says. "What inspires me now, is traditional country music. It's the music I most cherish, the culture in which I was raised. It's the bedrock upon which the empire of country music is built, the empowering force that provides this genre with lasting credibility. It's beyond trends and it's timeless. With all that being said, I found traditional country music to be on the verge of extinction. It's too precious to let slip away. I wanted to attempt to write a new chapter." 

That new chapter is Ghost Train (The Studio B    Sessions) which includes such unmitigated country staples as the male-female duet "I Run to You," written and sung with Connie Smith, the dramatic recitation (fittingly, as part of "Porter Wagoner's Grave," a story song written by Stuart that raises the ghost of the late, great country icon, whose final    album Marty produced, in the dramatic style Porter mastered), the chugging, bluesy and spooky fellow Mississippian Jimmie Rodgers-like train song "Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten," and such steel guitar driven, hardcore heartbreak ballads such as "A World Without You," and "Drifting Apart." Track nine is Marty's straightforward, outspoken new salute to the "Hard Working Man." conditions of everyday working life in the 21st century. That no-flinching  directness is also front and center in the premier of "Hangman," a pointed, harrowing tale that Stuart co-wrote with Johnny Cash just four days before the Man in Black passed away.   

Marty Stuart has shown a showman's zest for every conceivable flavor of country music. Not to  mention, a missionary's zeal for bringing the importance of the music and its themes home to long-time fans and newcomers alike. Musicologist Peter North cites, "Marty Stuart seems wrapped in his destiny at this point in time. Not only as country music's most notable ambassador/caretaker, but as its main archetypical crusader. He has without question evolved into one of the most important roots musicians and visionaries in America."