Marty Stuart Biography

Marty Stuart was born in 1958 in Mississippi. A musical prodigy as a young child, Marty began playing the mandolin and guitar with such proficiency that before he was a teenager, he was already performing in a bluegrass band. Stuart eventually joined the band Lester Flatt, performing with them well into the late 1970’s, and then joined Johnny Cash’s band in 1980. Around the same time he joined up with Cash, Marty Stuart released a solo album, With a Little Help From My Friends, and followed up with Busy Bee Café in 1982. Although neither album garnered Stuart much recognition as a solo artist, he signed with Columbia Records in 1985 and released a self-titled album as his debut on the label.

Marty Stuart, the album, fared much better. It spawned the hit single “Arlene” and the follow-up, Hillbilly Rock, in 1989, which gave Stuart his first top ten hit with the title track and another hit with the single “Western Girls.” Finally on the road to country music stardom, Marty Stuart was recognized with critical acclaim and since then has launched a series of other successful albums, including: Tempted (1991), Once Upon a Time (1992), This One’s Gonna Hurt You (1992), Let There Be Country (1992), Love and Luck (1994), Honky Tonkin’s What I Do Best (1996), The Pilgrim (1999), Country Music (2003), Souls’ Chapel (2005), Badlands; Ballads of the Lakota (2005), and Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions (2010.) Additional hit singles include: “Little Things,” “Till I Found You,” “Tempted,” “Burn Me Down,” “This One’s Gonna Hurt You (For a Long, Long Time),” “Now That’s Country,” and “Honky Tonkin’s What I Do Best.”

Marty Stuart continues to record and perform, but he can also be seen on the Marty Stuart Show, a series of thirty-minute episodes, which airs on cable’s RFD-TV. In addition, Stuart was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1992 and served as president of the Country Music Foundation.