JFP: Marty Stuart & Divine Country

Jackson Free Press: It’s difficult to label Marty Stuart. He is a solo artist who broke onto the country music scene as a sideman; a country artist whose roots are firmly entrenched in bluegrass; and a strict traditionalist who can still rub shoulders with country music’s rising stars.

But to Stuart, only one of those descriptions matters.

“Country music is what I do. If I die tomorrow, that’s what the headline will say: ‘Country Singer Marty Stuart,’” Stuart says.

The plain-spoken Stuart speaks of country music with the same reverence that most reserve only for religion. “If you go back to Virginia to where the Carter Family came from, you can feel that it was kind of divinely ordained music,” Stuart says.

Being a self-appointed caretaker of a “divinely ordained” musical genre is a lot of hard work, but Stuart knows that it’s a weight worth carrying: “(It) is what I feel like I am called to do. It’s part of who I am,” he says.

A native of Philadelphia, Miss., Stuart got his start in country music at age 14 as a member of bluegrass legend Lester Flatt’s band, and he hasn’t looked back since. (Full Story)