Marty Stuart
Well, I was dedicated to God before I was born by Momma and Daddy, and I was raised in a very traditional Southern Baptist home.Collection: Home
Addiction is a crazy disease. It's a progressive disease when it's not dealt with; it don't care who it takes, and it takes it all. You wind up losing your house, your home, your reputation.Collection: Home
People shouldn't be punished for their wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
When I pick up Hank Williams' guitar or that first suit that Johnny Cash wore on stage, it empowers me.
I wish I could have been in the control room at Capitol Studio A listening to the playback of 'Wichita Lineman' the first time it came into the atmosphere. It must have been a perfect moment in time.
When we lost Glen Campbell, we lost an American original. We also lost a really good man.
There's every other guitar player and then there's Chet. He transcended musical boundaries for more than fifty years. God only lays Chet Atkins on you once in a lifetime.
One of the most quotable guys ever in country music was Grandpa Jones.
Going back to the Byrds and 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo,' when country was kind of getting away from the fiddle and steel aspect, it took some rock & rollers to introduce a new generation to it, and it kinda put some things straight.
I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.
I went out on the road when I was 12 years old, playing with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers. That was the summer of 1972. We played Pentecostal churches, camp meetings, George Wallace campaign rallies and bluegrass festivals. As a kid, I had grown up watching quartets that were very entertaining.
The black church in the South is the home of rock & roll.
There was a junk store in Nashville on 8th Avenue, where I bought Patsy Cline's train case for $75.
Country music has taken so many forms, and I've always contended that it does not matter if the casual listener falls in love with country music through Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show or whomever - just get in and start digging!
I've always been a sucker for a truck driving song.
Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.
Well, I've always said that country music has always shared a very unique relationship with gospel music - the hooting and hollering, you know, always in abundance.
Well, my heart finally found a home when I married Connie Smith, and I was tired of feeling bad. And it was time to grow up and get on with life.
Coming from bluegrass background, I totally understand family harmonies.
Pop Staples was one of my true mentors.
When country music is doing its job, it reports on the good, bad and indifferent of our human condition.
When times are good, we have tunes to dance to; when times are tough, we're supposed to talk about it. That's country music.
After people work hard and cope with the pressures of life throughout the week, going out to a show or tuning in to watch some characters in cowboy clothes, singing and playing songs about real life is something I relate to.
I've always been a collector at heart.
From the first time I played with Lester Flatt, I sensed an extreme amount of history around me.
One thing that I love about country music, probably more so than any other culture - maybe the blues rivals it - there are so many American folk heroes. There's the Coal Miner's Daughter, the Man in Black, the Red-Headed Stranger, and on and on.
Rock 'n' roll entertained my head but there was something about country music that touched my heart.
There wasn't really a lot of difference from a Mississippi perspective between what Elvis did on 'Mystery Train' or 'Milkcow Blues' or what Bill Monroe was playing or what Flatt and Scruggs was playing; it was rock 'n' roll to me.
Hillbilly Rock' was the song that opened the door and gave me a reason to get a bus and a band and cowboy clothes to go out there and figure it out in front of everybody. And the hits started coming.
The history of country music is as important as any other art form.
The Ryman and the Grand Ole Opry, if you're a Southern boy, is just a way of life.
I hate labels.
I figure I'm a mandolin player first and foremost, and everything else I've accomplished is just a scam.
Nobody in my school knew who Bill Monroe was, or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and barely Johnny Cash. Nobody spoke that language. I proceeded to get myself kicked out.
Growing up in the Sixties, whether it was the Batmobile or the costumes Porter Wagoner wore or the music that came from there, California was the home of what a friend of mine calls 'custom culture.' It seemed like the promised land.
I loved the Rolling Stones. I heard a little bit of country music creeping around the edges of some of their songs. Being a Mississippi kid, I could feel they had done their homework, even when I was a little boy. I could feel the Delta blues influence in a lot of their work.
We need a new Hank Williams, a new Jimmy Webb. We need new writers, a new Tom Petty. We need people that write what they feel and what they see - things that are relevant.
I don't know how it got around that I play a lot of instruments. I really don't. I play the guitar and the mandolin.
Being sober and clear-eyed changes everything.
The four things a hillbilly singer needs are a Cadillac, a Nudie suit, the right hairdo, and a pair of pointy-toed boots.
I learned things by being in Lester Flatts' band, and I learned things by playing with Johnny Cash, and I learned from Pop Staples. I'm a sponge.
As a photographer, God's light in Southern California is something unlike I've ever seen on planet Earth. There's a beauty about it, especially in the afternoon that is so pretty.
The first picture of me that I know of was me in the crib wearing a pair of cowboy boots.
I'm always on the prowl for the kinds of recordings that can inspire and potentially make a difference.
I love playing music with Duane Eddy.
Unconditional love goes a long way.
Merle Haggard once said, 'I'm really mad at Glen Campbell because he's the most talented human being in the world.' That kind of summed it up. Merle didn't miss!
I've been promoting the idea of a Jimmie Rodgers documentary for years.
I believe in the future of country music, but a future without roots is like a kite with no string.
I make no apology about being a hillbilly.