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It was around 2:30 on the Thursday morning of Labor Day weekend 1972 when I first set foot in the city some refer to as the "Athens of the South." I had ridden the bus 430 miles from Philadelphia for what was supposed to be a weekend visit with Roland White. Roland was the mandolin player in Lester Flatt's band. I had met him on the bluegrass festival circuit the previous summer. We had become friends and at the end of the run he had invited me to come to Nashville. He also remarked that he would ask Lester if I could "ride along with them for a show or two."

Labor Day weekend seemed like a good time, as I was beginning the ninth grade and loathing every minute of it. I had just come in from my first season on the touring circuit with the Sullivans where I'd graduated from a crash course in bohemian Pentecostal wanderings. I'd discovered applause, flashy clothes, late nights, adventurous girls, constant motion, money, the Holy Ghost, music, music, and more music and I loved every minute of it. I'd grown accustomed to it. But now that school had started, I had to give up all those things. I felt as though the circus had dropped me off at the edge of town and left me behind.

To entertain myself in class one day, I took a copy of a Country Song Roundup magazine to put inside my book and read. I got lost in a story. My teacher walked up behind me and knocked the books out of my hands. She informed me that if I'd "get my mind off of that garbage and get it onto history" that I might make something of myself. I informed her that I was more interested in making history than learning about it. That remark got me dismissed from school. I went home and called Roland and took him up on his offer for a visit. After some pleading with my family, they finally consented for me to go to Nashville for the weekend.

When I stepped off the bus that morning I was expecting Roland to be there to meet me. He was nowhere in sight. Thirty minutes later he still hadn't arrived. As I waited I couldn't help but notice how dark it was. No moon, no stars, the only movement in the sky was the night birds.

I had always dreamed of coming to Nashville. However, I didn't think I would get here this fast. I wanted to live in the land of rhinestone suits. It was country boy Hollywood, the air castle of the South, a dream factory. I didn't see much glamour before me that night at the bus station, though. Mostly a steady stream of tear-stained travelers who looked as if all their dreams were shattered, coming and going into the abyss of the Greyhound corridors. The first live music I heard in Music City came from a harmonica-playing street performer.

He was standing over a manhole cover with steam forming around him. It gave him a phantom-like presence. He played "Pins and Needles in My Heart" by Roy Acuff and then moved on without saying a word, and not a soul seemed to care.

I was beginning to get anxious as Roland was nowhere to be found. I picked up my bags and walked to the other side of the Greyhound station in hopes that he might be waiting there. He wasn't. What was waiting on me was a vision that I had not counted on seeing. I came face to face with the Mother Church of Country Music - the Ryman Auditorium. Just the sight of the place nearly drove me to my knees. The Ryman represented so much to me.

I'd collected stories about the Ryman. I'd read about Hank Williams encoring his song "The Lovesick Blues" on the Grand Ole Opry nine times one Saturday night. I knew of Johnny Cash dragging the microphone stand across the footlights on one of his bad nights, an incident that got him dismissed from the show. I was aware that on a Saturday night in 1945 a young banjo player from North Carolina named Earl Scruggs auditioned for Bill Monroe in one of the dressing rooms. After Monroe heard him, he was hired. It was from here that Monroe, along with Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise, and Cedric Rainwater, went on to blueprint the music now known as bluegrass.

Sourcebooks in Naperville, Illinois,
has announced the launch of a new
digital publishing program that will
integrate audio, video, and images
into the text, creating for the reader
what is being called a “theater of
the mind.” The first title in this series
is Country Music: The Masters, by
Grammy winner Marty Stuart. Also
available as a physical book with accompanying
CD, the digital version
of Country Music expands the experience
with audio integrated with
the book’s 400 photographs and the
inclusion of a never-before-released
song by Stuart, also integrated into
the text. The digital version of the
book is available for $19.95 and can
be previewed at www.sourcebooks
.com/country-
music-digital-book
.html. Other titles to followed in
Sourcebooks’ enhanced digital editions
include Laura Duksta’s picture
book I Love You More and a version
of Macbeth featuring integrated audio
of 25 performances by different
actors throughout the twentieth
century.

—Bill Ott


“Musician Stuart, who owns the world’s largest private collection of country music memorabilia, serenades the genre’s pioneers, stars and culture with this opulent coffee-table book.”

“It’s clear that Marty Stuart, who has been a successful country musician for nearly 40 years, understands that heart of hick darkness… a vast collection of photographs of country stars (and more).”

“Marty has seen it all – and left nothing out. His book is a remarkable document of country-music history and a testament to his passion for the music and its roots.”

“Marty Stuart’s spectacular photo book is not just a chapter of American history, it’s a love letter to the people and music that have helped shape our culture.”

“There’s a wealth of books for country fans in stores this holiday season... Among the most impressive works is Marty Stuart’s lovingly collected and poetically remembered gallery of artist photographs…”

“Stuart’s coverage of the greats and near-greats is comprehensive and often very candid, and even his blurred, snapped-on-the run photos have historic value.”

At bottom, country music is about the abiding joys of home—both real and imagined. Take away the songs that express in one way or another a longing to return to the comforting place of one’s childhood, and there would be precious little of this music left. The armature of home life is, of course, the family; and it is the familial nature of the performers who created modern country music that Marty Stuart illuminates in this collection of snapshots and formal portraits. Stuart took most of these photos while he was playing in or leading various country bands. There is significantly more to this book, though, than just a procession of famous and semi-famous faces. Stuart also offers photos of ornate stage costumes, show posters, stars’ tombstones, first drafts of classic songs, fabled guitars, mandolins and fiddles, ancient cabins and farm buildings, honky tonks, country churches, and the scenes of Patsy Cline’s plane crash and Stringbean’s murder. (Those who’ve never heard of Stringbean will find less to savor in this book than those familiar enough with country music to remember him as the lanky, banjo-playing comedian from Hee Haw. This is very much an insider’s book, not a fact- and date-laden introduction to the subject.)
No one else in country music today is as well suited to convey the music’s essence as the Mississippi-born Stuart. A prodigy on the mandolin, he began performing professionally when he was twelve years old, and at thirteen he joined the legendary Lester Flatt’s band. Later, he toured for several years with Johnny Cash (and married his daughter, Cindy) before venturing out on his own. He went on to win four Grammy awards and become a revered member the Grand Ole Opry.
Besides his instrumental skills, Stuart brings to this work an encyclopedic knowledge of country music and a curator’s zeal for collecting, cataloging, and annotating its artifacts. He has amassed one of the largest collections of country music memorabilia in private hands—some 20,000 items. Very early in his career, Stuart saw in a Greenwich Village bookstore a series of behind-the-scenes photos of jazz stars taken by jazz bassist Milt Hinton, who, as it turned out, carried a camera with him to all his gigs. Realizing that he, too, had a rare degree of access to famous artists, Stuart decided to do the same. Thus began the visual treasury this book incorporates.
Many of Stuart’s pictures are masterpieces of character and mood. One shows Bill Monroe, the originator of bluegrass music, playing mandolin for a flock of chickens, as his long white limousine stretches behind him. In another, Monroe and Flatt shake hands on stage to end a feud that had kept them apart for twenty-five years. Then there’s the garishly decorated gravesite of Teddy and Doyle, the Wilburn Brothers, a nightmare of sepulchral overkill. Stuart also includes the surprisingly well-composed photo he took of singer Connie Smith when she performed in his hometown in 1970. Although only twelve at the time, he told his mother that he would one day marry Smith—and twenty-seven years later, he did. However, the most moving of Stuart’s images is his cover photo of Johnny Cash, taken four days before his death. In it, his jaw sunken, his nose strong and straight, his eye open but blank, Cash looks like he’s chiseled from stone.
Enriching this collection is an enhanced CD that contains sixteen of Stuart’s spoken word narrations, four cuts of his instrumental music, one song (“Dark Bird,” a tribute to Cash) and a music video of that song. It will mean more if one listens to the CD before paging through the book, even if one is conversant with country music. Stuart tells the stories behind many of the most eloquent photos, including those of Smith and Monroe. He also details Stringbean’s murder and explains why it took him so long to re-visit and photograph the house where the killing took place.
Impressive though it is, the book has its flaws. Some of the performers pictured are “masters” only in the most elastic sense. Other undisputed masters are left out entirely, among them Conway Twitty, Barbara Mandrell, Reba McEntire, Ronnie Milsap, and Don Williams. It would be helpful, particularly to researchers, if the captions were more thorough and included dates and locations. But these are quibbles. Overall Stuart has achieved what he sought, and that was to illustrate through its practitioners the richness, beauty, and dignity of this often denigrated art form. Certainly, he ranks high among the masters he celebrates. (November) Edward Morris