Marty Stuart

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Marty Stuart has had a long and varied solo career, but he began as a bluegrass wunderkind. Born in Mississippi in 1958, he was a guitar and mandolin prodigy who started playing professionally at age 12 and began working with bluegrass legend Lester Flatt while in his teens. In 1980, he joined Johnny Cash’s band; he worked with the country icon for five years, marrying Cash’s daughter Cindy during that period. As a solo artist, Stuart began making bluegrass-oriented indie records in 1978, but he went down a more contemporary, rock-informed country path when he began recording for Columbia in 1985. He scored a string of Top 10 country hits in the ’90s, including “Hillbilly Rock,” “Tempted,” and “Burn Me Down.” In the 2000s, he put together his longtime backing band The Fabulous Superlatives, with whom he made some of his most eclectic albums, including concept records like the spiritually oriented Souls’ Chapel and the desert-themed Way Out West, featuring dashes of gospel, psychedelia, and more. Over the years, Stuart has racked up a crowded shelf of Grammys and other honors, becoming a country institution while remaining a maverick at heart.