#MARTY STUART BAND MEMBERS TV#

Stuart nailed it.įrom the traditional blues opener I Know You Rider (Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone) to the final encore audience-request of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ great American story of a band from the middle of nowhere trying to make it- Runnin’ Down a Dream- I simply have never heard music this good, grand and uplifting, in any medium, in any genre-if the Lord said make a joyful noise he would have cancelled the Flood to hear more of Stuart’s singular band of merry pranksters, on acoustic and electric guitar, drums, pedal steel guitar, electric bass, upright bass, and mandolin, and vocal harmonies that ranged from flat out rock and roll to pure traditional country to reverent gospel music that would have raised the roof on any church in town. Rouse-whom Earl Scruggs introduced to Marty Stuart when on tour in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, where Rouse first saw the Special at its original train depot in 1938-and was inspired to write what soon became every fiddle player’s showstopper, and the sine qua non to get hired in a bluegrass band. The comic standout embellishment of his performance was his high-pitched vocal imitation of the song’s composer, Ervin T. Stetson cowboy hat and politely bowed to Stuart-that’s how good it was but saying that reflects the limits of language-for it was beyond words. Bill Monroe, father of bluegrass and the gold standard of mandolin for a generation, would have taken off his John B. His performance was incandescent and deserved the standing ovation it got-all by itself. Fabulous Superlatives-the name of his band-is an understatement they are the greatest band in country music, and Marty Stuart is part of the band he is a great guitarist and an even greater mandolin player-who single-handedly carried the classic train song of all time, The Orange Blossom Special as a solo mandolin instrumental and song.

That’s when you discover that Stuart’s roots have some branches all his own.įive-time Grammy-winner Marty Stuart is to country music what U.N Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was to diplomacy its greatest ambassador. You will listen to any number of His Fabulous Superlatives arrangements of his traditional-sounding country songs and not be taken aback until they reach the last chord-the one that suddenly jumps out at you-and you realize, wait a minute-that’s a jazz chord-it’s suspended, augmented, there’s a 9th you didn’t expect-and it’s simply perfect. Stuart has integrated blues, gospel, jazz and rock and roll (all black idioms) into country music, in both obvious and subtle ways. Marty Stuart didn’t have far to search for the black music that informs his entire approach to country music it was all around him from Day One. This white three-year old born-to-be a country singer thus grew up in the epicenter of African-American culture-both secular and religious, and in the crucible of white segregationist resistance to the struggle for black equality. It was a wild rollercoaster ride Jill and I were thrilled by and won’t soon forget.Ī bit of background: Marty Stuart was born in 1958 in Philadelphia, Mississippi-three years before the Freedom Rides came to Mississippi, and just six years before it became the most notorious town in America, site of the murder of three civil rights workers, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman who had gone to work for voting rights during Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, and next door to the related black church burning in Neshoba County, all orchestrated by the local Sheriff and Ku Klux Klan. And then I stepped into a time machine-Smothers Theatre at Pepperdine University-and got dragged kicking and screaming back into the mid-20th Century. I thought it no longer existed, except in my dusty LP record collection.

#MARTY STUART BAND MEMBERS TV#

I had a near-death experience last night in Malibu, ninety minutes in Heaven that made me a believer-in Marty Stuart’s recreation of the traditional country music I grew up on-and have long since stopped hearing on any radio station or TV show claiming to broadcast country music today. He was a child prodigy on both guitar and mandolin and at thirteen became their lead mandolin player. When he was thirteen years old Marty Stuart ran away to join the circus-the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs bluegrass band. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous SuperlativesĪt Pepperdine University in Malibu: Thursday, September 17, 2015

Marty stuart band members