Country Music Icon Returns to the Uptown: A Conversation with Marty Stuart
Marty Stuart is country music royalty. An NPR story described him as “the very image of country music.” In his PBS documentary series on the genre, Ken Burns said, “If country music had a president, it would be Marty Stuart.”
A literal musical wunderkind, Stuart was a member of Lester Flatt’s band starting at age 14, and beginning at age 20 was for five years a touring and recording member of Johnny Cash’s band. An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter, he is a five-time Grammy winner and a member of the Grand Old Opry. In 2020 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Stuart and his band, The Fabulous Superlatives, will play the Uptown Theatre in Napa on Saturday, July 26.
On the phone from a tour stop in Boone, North Carolina, last month, Stuart spoke at length about his music and his band. “To begin with,” he said, “I’m spoiled rotten to be around such great musicians. I mean, they’re the best of the best of the best. It’s rare air where the Superlatives breathe. Kenny Vaughan and Chris Scruggs (Earl Scruggs’ grandson) and Harry Stinson, they are just so knowledgeable of so many different tributaries of music.
“They’re professor kind of characters, because they can teach it as well as they can play it. They are well-versed, world-class musical citizens. One of the things that I’ve always found so easy with The Superlatives is it doesn’t matter what kind of song, what kind of project. It’s like, ‘Hey guys, here it is.’ And nobody even bats an eye. They just go to work.”
Stuart touted the versatility of the band and particularly their commitment to authenticity, regardless of genre. When original Byrds Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman set out to honor the 50th anniversary of their “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album, a recording widely considered as fundamental to the birth of country rock as a genre, they chose Stuart and the Superlatives to be the rest of the band for a commemorative tour and a subsequent live album.
“What mattered was the authenticity of that band and that historic recording,” Stuart said. “We wanted to get it right and I think we did.”
Stuart spoke with musical pride about his birthplace. “I come from Mississippi,” he said. “And the truth is, when you drive across the state line down there, there’s a big sign that reads, ‘Welcome to Mississippi, Birthplace of America’s Music.’ And that statement can pretty well be backed up.
“Everything is blues-based down there, whether it’s gospel or country or rock and roll or jazz. You’ll find a strand of the blues in everything that comes from Mississippi. The legacy down there is really broad. I grew up knowing full well that I was a country music musician, but rock and roll appealed to me, and so did soul music, and so did gospel music, and so did instrumental music and bluegrass. It all kind of fits under the same umbrella if you come at it from a roots perspective. I know where we’re rooted as a band, and everybody comes from their own world, and it’s just as vast as mine. And they bring their culture with them to the microphone and the bandstand and the studio, and that makes for some pretty good music.”
Looking back to this band’s performance at the Uptown in 2023, after a string of classic country songs in their “cowboy clothes,” as Stuart describes them, they briefly and joyfully became a surf band, as spot on as The Ventures. With eyes closed one could have imagined them in board shorts, tank tops and flip-flops. Their elevated musicianship and purity regardless of genre is uncommon and a joy to experience.
After emphasizing versatility, Stuart spoke about his love for what he called “real” country music. “I think probably the most authentic country music that our band has played was when we had our television show, 156 episodes,” he said. “We made two records during that period, one called Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, and the other was Nashville Volume 1: Tear the Woodpile Down. Those records were about as country, as stone cold country, as you can get.
“When a real country song, when a real honest to goodness, undoubtable, unapologetic country song, comes through my pen or through the channel these days, I understand what to do with it. I know how to make real country music. And I love it. I dearly love it. It’s a precious language.”
Finally, a warm tip of the hat to California from this Mississippi-born Nashvillian. “If you look at everything that we’ve done recently,” he said, “especially starting with our albums Way Out West and then Altitude, and now Space Junk, our current instrumental release, and throw in our tour as The Byrds, everything we’ve done recently is just basically a big old love letter to California, California music, California culture. This band sounds better in California and it feels better in California. It feels like home in so many ways.”
For details and ticketing, see uptowntheatrenapa.com.
