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John Marty Stuart (born September 30, 1958) is an American country music and bluegrass music singer, songwriter, and musician. Active since 1968, Stuart initially toured with Lester Flatt, and then in Johnny Cash's road band before beginning work as a solo artist in the early 1980s. He is known for his combination of rockabilly, country rock, and bluegrass music influences, his frequent collaborations and cover songs, and his distinctive stage dress.
His greatest commercial success came in the first half of the 1990s on MCA Records Nashville. Stuart has recorded over 20 studio albums, and has charted over 30 times on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His highest chart entry is "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'", a duet with Travis Tritt.
Stuart has won five out of 16 nominations. He is also a member of the Grand Ole Opry and Country Music Hall of Fame.
In 1982 he released a second album called Busy Bee Cafe on Sugar Hill Records. The album was composed of a jam session that included a number of country and bluegrass performers such as Cash, Watson, and Earl Scruggs. In 1985, Stuart accompanied Johnny Cash to Memphis and played on the Class of '55 album that also featured Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. At the end of the session, Perkins presented Stuart with his guitar.Dickerson, James L., Goin' Back to Memphis: A Century of Blues, Rock 'n' Roll and Glorious Soul, Schirmer Books, 1996, pg. 12 Later that year, Stuart left Cash's band and landed a recording contract with Columbia Records.
His second MCA album, Tempted, followed in 1991. The album charted four singles on Hot Country Songs between 1991 and 1992: "Little Things", "Till I Found You", "Tempted", and "Burn Me Down", of which all except "Till I Found You" reached the top 10. Bennett and Brown stayed on as producers, with the former also contributing alongside Stuart on both guitar and mandolin. Kennerley and Kostas contributed as both songwriters and backing vocalists; also performing backing vocals on some tracks were Billy Thomas and Ray Herndon, who were also recording on MCA in McBride & the Ride at the time. Jana Pendragon of AllMusic gave the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, comparing it to Dwight Yoakam's Hillbilly Deluxe in style and saying, "Stuart kicks country-pop in its well-defined hindquarters…But Stuart is just as deadly when he slows things down and does a ballad."
Also in 1991, Stuart co-wrote a song with Travis Tritt called "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'". Recorded on the latter's 1991 album It's All About to Change, this song was released in between "Tempted" and "Burn Me Down". It went on to become Stuart's highest chart entry, reaching number two on Hot Country Songs in early 1992. It also won Stuart his first Grammy Award, for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals that year. This song's success also led to the two touring in 1992 as the No Hats Tour, because unlike most contemporary country musicians, neither Tritt nor Stuart sported a cowboy hat.
Love and Luck was his next album, released in 1994. Only one single, "Kiss Me, I'm Gone", made top 40 from the project. Stuart co-produced the album with Brown, while also contributing on guitar, mandolin, and songwriting. The album's opening title track featured Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, and Harry Stinson on backing vocals. Also included were two covers: Billy Joe Shaver's "If I Give My Soul" and The Flying Burrito Brothers' "Wheels", as well as the mandolin instrumental "Marty Stuart Visits the Moon". Daniel Gioffre of AllMusic highlighted these three tracks in particular as being among the strongest on the album. Nash rated the album "B", stating, "As a singer, Marty Stuart has all the zip of unbuttered toast, and as a writer, too many of his songs float aimlessly...Yet Stuart has genuine love for the early country greats and injects his own work with such impassioned strains of old hillbilly styles, that he charms in spite of his limitations."
Following this album, MCA issued a compilation called The Marty Party Hit Pack in 1995, which contained singles from his previous MCA albums, as well as "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'", the previously unreleased "The Likes of Me" and "If I Ain't Got You", and two cover songs previously found on multi-artist tribute albums released in 1994. These were a rendition of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel", featuring The Jordanaires and previously found on It's Now or Never: The Tribute to Elvis, and The Band's "The Weight", featuring The Staple Singers and previously found on Rhythm, Country and Blues. Both of these cover songs were produced by Don Was, while Don Cook handled production on the two new songs. "The Likes of Me" was previously cut by Conway Twitty on his 1993 album Final Touches, on which Cook was also a producer. Both of these new songs were issued as singles in 1995, but neither entered the country music top 40. Jay Orr of New Country magazine criticized "The Likes of Me" and the two cover songs, but otherwise found the album a "neat summation" of Stuart's music. The Marty Party Hit Pack became Stuart's fourth and final gold album in 1998.
Stuart released Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best in 1996, which produced two more minor chart entries in the title track (another duet with Tritt) and "You Can't Stop Love" that year. The title track also won Stuart a Vocal Event of the Year award from the Country Music Association. Nash rated the album "A−", finding an influence of the Beatles in "Thanks to You" and of Delta blues in "The Mississippi Mudcat and Sister Sheryl Crow".
His next album was 2003's Country Music, released on Columbia Records. For this album, Stuart assembled a new backing band called Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, consisting of Harry Stinson on drums, Kenny Vaughan on guitar, and Brian Glenn on bass guitar. Included on the albums were covers of Porter Wagoner's "A Satisfied Mind", Carl Butler and Pearl's "Sundown in Nashville", and Johnny Cash's "Walls of a Prison", as well as the Merle Haggard duet "Farmer's Blues". Two singles from the album both charted: "If There Ain't, There Ought'a Be" and "Too Much Month (At the End of the Money)". Thom Jurek of AllMusic wrote that the album "is relentless in both its attack and in the pleasure it provides to the listener. There are hot licks everywhere, with great songs, vocals, and a tapestry of moods, textures, and shades that serve to leave one impression: Stuart's radical experimentation of the last ten years has resulted in his finest moment thus far."
In 2005, Stuart launched a custom record label, Superlatone Records, to issue overlooked Southern Gospel music and roots music recordings. Stuart released three critically acclaimed collections on Superlatone, Souls' Chapel, Badlands, and Live at the Ryman. In October 2005, Stuart released a concept album, Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota, which pays tribute to the Sioux culture in what is now South Dakota. In 2007, Stuart produced Porter Wagoner's final album on the predominantly punk label Epitaph Records.
In August 2022, he signed with Snakefarm Records, his first record deal in nearly 10 years. He also went on tour with the Fabulous Superlatives in Europe, with scheduled performances in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Sam Williams, Hank Williams' grandson, was his supporting act.
Yvonne and Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers gave one of their father "Pops" Staples' guitars to Marty Stuart after Pop's death. Mavis Staples explained, "My father was Marty's godfather. My sisters and I took him in as our brother. He's the only one that I've heard who -- when he's playing guitar, he sounds like Pop. He can play just like him."
Stuart's guitars also include 'Clarence', the familiar two-tone Fender Telecaster, once owned by Clarence White. This instrument is the original B-Bender guitar, built and designed by White and Gene Parsons around 1967, to allow the guitarist to manually raise the guitar's 'B' string one whole step to play in a style similar to a pedal steel guitar. Stuart bought this unique guitar in 1980 from White's widow, and continued to play it in concert, as of 2025.
Each episode features music by Stuart and his band the Fabulous Superlatives. Stuart hosts and produces the 30-minute episodes, with WSM disc jockey and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs serving as the show's emcee.
Since July 8, 1997, Stuart has been married to country artist Connie Smith, whom he had admired since his childhood. Stuart described encountering Smith many years earlier, after attending her concert: "I met Connie when I was 12 years old. She came to the Indian reservation in my hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi, to work at a fair. She hasn't changed a bit. She looked great then and she looks great now." Stuart said he told his mother then that he was going to marry Connie Smith. Smith explains how they have sustained their marriage : "Make the Lord the center ... and commit."
| 1985 | Academy of Country Music | Top New Male Vocalist | Marty Stuart | |
| 1990 | Country Music Association | Video of the Year | "Hillbilly Rock" | |
| 1991 | Academy of Country Music | Top Vocal Duet | Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt | |
| 1992 | ||||
| Grammy Awards | Best Country Collaboration with Vocals | "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'" (with Travis Tritt) | ||
| Country Music Association Awards | Vocal Event of the Year | "The One's Gonna Hurt You" (with Travis Tritt) | ||
| 1994 | Album of the Year | Asleep at the Wheel: Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys | ||
| Rhythm, Country and Blues | ||||
| Vocal Event of the Year | "The Devil Comes Back to Georgia" (with Charlie Daniels Band, Travis Tritt, Mark O'Connor and Johnny Cash) | |||
| 1996 | Vocal Event of the Year | "Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best" (with Travis Tritt) | ||
| Academy of Country Music | Top Vocal Duet | Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt | ||
| 1998 | Vocal Event of the Year | Same Old Train (with various artists) | ||
| 1999 | Grammy Awards | Best Country Collaboration with Vocals | ||
| Country Music Association | Vocal Event of the Year | |||
| 2000 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Original Score | All the Pretty Horses | |
| 2002 | Grammy Awards | Best Country Instrumental Performance | "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" | |
| 2004 | International Bluegrass Music Awards | Recorded Event of the Year | ||
| 2005 | Americana Music Honors & Awards | Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance | Marty Stuart | |
| 2008 | International Bluegrass Music Awards | Recorded Event of the Year | Everett Lilly & Everybody and Their Brother | |
| 2011 | Grammy Awards | Best Country Instrumental Performance | "Hummingbyrd" | |
| Best Country Collaboration with Vocals | "I Run To You" (with Connie Smith) | |||
| 2017 | Americana Music Honors & Awards | Duo/Group of the Year | Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives |
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