![]() ![]() “His collection of artifacts is extensive and beautiful,” she said. Stuart said the Way Out West tour collection features such items as Johnny Cash’s first black performance suit, Hank Williams’ handwritten notes for “I Saw the Light” and the boots Patsy Cline was wearing the day she lost her life.Įmily Havens, executive director of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, said she’s heard Stuart’s plans for creating a country music memorabilia museum in Mississippi. “I think that in a few years we will have a museum in Philadelphia,” he said. He got serious about it in the 1980s and now has about 20,000 items. He’d collect autographs, guitar picks, etc. He said he started collecting memorabilia as a child when bands came to Philadelphia. The Way out West tour also features some of Marty Stuart’s collection of country music memorabilia. If he got something in his head or in his mind, he did it. “I went into a creative space I had not been in before … When I was in Johnny Cash’s band, he was one of the most creatively fearless individuals in my life. “I followed my heart, and it paid off,” Stuart said. Today, Stuart is touring and performing Way out West, a mix of songs and instrumental music that blends modern and classic country, Western and gospel with Native American and country-psychedelic sound. But after parting ways with Cash in 1985 to focus on his solo career, he and Cindy divorced in 1988. Stuart and his guitar joined Johnny Cash’s back-up band in 1979 and eventually married Cash’s daughter, Cindy. They toured bluegrass festivals and concerts, and Stuart met many musical greats, including Bill Monroe, Scruggs, the Eagles, Emmylou Harris and Bob Dylan. Flatt was a guitarist and mandolinist best known for collaborating with banjo picker Earl Scruggs as The Foggy Mountain Boys. I was a pitiful excuse for a student.”Īt 13, Stuart began playing mandolin with American bluegrass legend Lester Flatt and his band, The Nashville Grass. ![]() “When I came back, I didn’t want to be in school,” he said. Influenced by his musical family, Stuart started his first band at age 9 and played in local bands until age 12 when he went on tour as a mandolin player with the Sullivan Family, a Pentecostal bluegrass gospel group. “I would play and pretend the Grand Ole Opry, or something, was my actual stage,” he said. He often played music on the front porch. ![]() Stuart hunted and fished on his property and spent time in his grandfather’s home with no telephone or running water. Some sported gold teeth, and Stuart said one of his earliest goals was to have a gold tooth.Īs a child, he routinely attended the Choctaw Indian Fair in nearby Choctaw and visited his grandfather, an old-time fiddle player, who lived about 10 miles outside of town. Stuart also was influenced by African-American musicians who played at a local cafe. “It was a wonderful way to grow up,” he said. He spent much of his youth listening to Howard Cole, a radio announcer for WHOC-AM, who introduced him to several music genres, including country, Top 40 and classical. The train often came through at night while Stuart slept, and he loved the sound. 30, 1958, Stuart was raised on Kosciusko Road in Philadelphia, Miss., near a train track. “Growing up, my world was music,” he said.īorn Sept. He also recalls being moved to tears by the music of a local marching band. I heard the music of the Methodist church, and that music touched my heart and made me cry.” I remember feeling the fabric of her dress. “My first memory on this Earth was being a baby in my mother’s arms and crying,” he said. Even though Marty Stuart also left home in his youth seeking musical adventure, he wasn’t shot down. While the song inspired Stuart, Billy Joe’s life doesn’t mirror Stuart’s. Inspired by his youthful visions of the West, Stuart included the ballad “Lost On the Desert” - also once performed by Cash - on his new album “Way out West.” He is currently touring and performing the album. He seeks adventure, but meets his doom in a duel.Ĭash’s ballad about Billy Joe and the television series “Gunsmoke” helped provide a Western fantasy for Stuart as a child. He isn’t prepared for the cold, cruel world. It’s a song about a young, naive man who wants to escape the monotony of daily life, but isn’t quite capable of handling his emotions. “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” is a song about a young cowboy named Billy Joe who is filled with wanderlust and leaves home to see the world. “That song captured my imagination and transported me from my Mississippi bed to the days out West.” “There’s a saying in Nashville – ‘It all begins with a song,’” Stuart said. In 1958, the same year Mississippi native Marty Stuart was born, country music legend Johnny Cash released a single called “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town.” ![]()
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