Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 4, 1993 TAG: 9306040180
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At that age, most country singers are just getting themselves established.
But Stuart, who plays Victory Stadium tonight, has already done enough to retire.
He started in the music business at 13, earning a spot playing mandolin in bluegrass pioneer Lester Flatt's road band.
His stint there lasted seven years, until Flatt's death in 1979.
Along the way, Stuart toured the country and finished high school through correspondence courses. His parents even moved from their native Mississippi to Nashville to help support their young son's budding career.
After Flatt, Stuart joined Johnny Cash's touring band for a six-year apprenticeship.
In 1982, with Cash's help, he self-produced his first solo record, "Busy Bee Cafe." Well-known country-folk singer Doc Watson also helped out on the recording.
Released on a small, independent record label, "Busy Bee Cafe" didn't rocket Stuart to fame.
He eventually signed on with CBS Records. At the same time, he married Cash's daughter, Cindy.
In 1986, Stuart and CBS released the album "Marty Stuart." It failed miserably, and a follow-up was never issued.
CBS then dropped him. Cindy dropped him, too, as their marriage ended in divorce.
Stuart retreated to Mississippi to sit on his grandfather's porch and think things through.
No quick offers followed.
Stuart likes to quote the late country singer Roger Miller about this dark period. "I looked up and there were buzzards circling my career."
A telephone call from a traveling gospel outfit, the Sullivan Family, which Stuart knew from his youth, followed. They were looking for a new mandolin player. Did he know any?
With nothing better on the horizon, Stuart volunteered, and spent six months with the group playing mostly rural churches across the south.
Meanwhile, Nashville insiders never totally forgot Stuart.
When he returned to Nashville in 1989, he took a pilgrimage to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He says he spent two days in the museum for inspiration.
Not long afterward, he signed his second record deal - this time with MCA.
MCA released the album, "Hillbilly Rock," which produced four moderate hits: "Western Girls," "Cry, Cry, Cry," "Till I Found You" and the title track.
Stuart and MCA followed with "Tempted" and its country-rock breakthrough "Burn Me Down."
Around the same time, he teamed with fellow country-rocker Travis Tritt for a duet, "The Whiskey Ain't Working," which earned the pair both Grammy and Country Music Association awards.
A successful tour, the No Hats Tour, with Stuart and Tritt followed. It stopped in Roanoke in February 1992.
Stuart is known for his collection of garish rhinestone jackets that recall the country flash of the 1950s and 1960s. He reportedly owns some 300, including a few that were once worn by Hank Williams Sr.
Until this year, he also traveled in a vintage tour bus owned by another country legend, Ernest Tubbs. Now, some of his crew people travel in it.
Stuart's current album is "This One's Gonna Hurt You," featuring the hits "Doin' My Time" with Johnny Cash, "Me & Hank & Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Now That's Country" and the title track, another duet with Tritt.
There are other well-known musicians Stuart has worked with as well, including Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, the Everly Brothers, Neil Young and Bill Monroe.
In a telephone interview from Oklahoma City last weekend before a concert, Stuart said he had learned a lifetime of music from these people.
From Bob Dylan, he learned: "Just when you think you've written a good song, you just listen to one of his and you know you haven't," he said.
Stuart said when working with legends, you learn something else, too. "You don't ask questions. You just watch."
In Oklahoma, he played a relatively small 2,500-seat auditorium, which he finds as a welcome change of pace from the seemingly endless coliseum routine.
He said the more intimate setting also offered him a test. "If you can't cut it at a honky-tonk, believe me, you can't play a coliseum."
It also allows him to mix things up more - something he does often anyhow. "It keeps the band on their toes," he said.
Recently, Stuart said he has been breaking into Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee," occasionally. "It's a great snapshot from the period."
He doesn't put his own country-rock spin on it, though. "I stick real true to the arrangement," he said. "It was done right the first time."
MARTY STUART headlines tonight for Roanoke's Festival in the Park, Victory Stadium. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Blackwater, Great Plains open. Admission is Festival button: $2 in advance, $5 at gate. 342-2640.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB