Marty Stuart

& the Fabulous Superlatives

Marty Stuart is making the best music of his life. If you caught him in Nashville in September, for example, you'd find him in front of his band, the Fabulous Superlatives, a name that sounded less and less like hyperbole with each show. Out front, his hair rising improbably into the air, his black cowboy jacket outlined in red piping, and his black-leather pants blending into his black boots, was Stuart himself, picking his guitar and mandolin and singing with unprecedented authority. His show was full of terrific original songs, but periodically he played a touchstone of country music history, beginning with the bluegrass of "In the Pines," continuing through the Bakersfield honky-tonk of "Buckaroo" and climaxing with the gospel original, "It's Time To Go Home."

As she shifted gears through all of these styles and more, Stuart never lost momentum. His stabbing mandolin notes and aching vocal evoked the desolation of the abandoned lover in the pines; h is jumping electric guitar captured the abandon of a Saturday-night buckaroo, and his yearning drawl revealed the peace that can be found in accepting death.

Where did this new-found confidence and charisma come from? How, at age 48, when many country-music veterans are slouching towards oblivion, has Stuart so improbably reached new heights?

Read full biography at . . . www.martystuart.net