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Marty Stuart — news, coverage & facts — IJR

1989-91: Beginning of MCA Records tenure

After briefly rejoining the Sullivans, he returned to Nashville and signed with MCA Records in 1989. That label issued the album Hillbilly Rock that year. Co-produced by Tony Brown and session guitarist Richard Bennett, the album charted four singles on Hot Country Songs. First was a cover of Cash's "Cry! Cry! Cry!", followed by "Don't Leave Her Lonely Too Long", which Stuart wrote with Kostas. While these were unsuccessful on the charts, the album's title track (written by Paul Kennerley) became Stuart's first top-10 country hit in 1990. The album's final release was "Western Girls", which Stuart also co-wrote. Hillbilly Rock was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1997 for shipments of 500,000 copies.

His second MCA album, Tempted, followed in 1991. The album charted four singles on Hot Country Songs between 1991 and 1992: "Little Things", "Till I Found You", "Tempted", and "Burn Me Down", of which all except "Till I Found You" reached the top 10. Bennett and Brown stayed on as producers, with the former also contributing alongside Stuart on both guitar and mandolin. Kennerley and Kostas contributed as both songwriters and backing vocalists; also performing backing vocals on some tracks were Billy Thomas and Ray Herndon, who were also recording on MCA in McBride & the Ride at the time. Jana Pendragon of AllMusic gave the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, comparing it to Dwight Yoakam's Hillbilly Deluxe in style and saying, "Stuart kicks country-pop in its well-defined hindquarters[…]But Stuart is just as deadly when he slows things down and does a ballad."

Also in 1991, Stuart co-wrote a song with Travis Tritt called "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'". Recorded on the latter's 1991 album It's All About to Change, this song was released in between "Tempted" and "Burn Me Down". It went on to become Stuart's highest chart entry, reaching number two on Hot Country Songs in early 1992. It also won Stuart his first Grammy Award, for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals that year. This song's success also led to the two touring in 1992 as the No Hats Tour, because unlike most contemporary country musicians, neither Tritt nor Stuart sported a cowboy hat.

1992-95: End of MCA tenure

His next MCA album, This One's Gonna Hurt You, came out in 1992. The lead single "This One's Gonna Hurt You (For a Long, Long Time)", also a duet with Tritt, was a top-10 hit in 1992, but the followup singles, "Now That's Country", "High on a Mountain Top", and "Hey Baby", were less successful. Kennerley and Cash were once again among the contributing vocalists, while Ashley Cleveland and Pam Tillis both sang backing vocals on "High on a Mountain Top". Johnny Cash provided duet vocals on "Doin' My Time", while the track "Me and Hank and Jumpin' Jack Flash" sampled voice recordings of Lester Flatt, Hank Williams, and Ernest Tubb. Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly rated the album "A", finding the "stylistic mix" superior to preceding albums, noting influences of bluegrass, Southern rock, rockabilly, and blues in his delivery and song choices. Also in 1992, Columbia issued Let There Be Country. This One's Gonna Hurt You was certified gold by the RIAA in 1993. Stuart won his second Grammy Award in 1993, in the category of Best Country Instrumental Performance, as one of several featured artists on Asleep at the Wheel's cover of "Red Wing" on their 1993 album Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Love and Luck was his next album, released in 1994. Only one single, "Kiss Me, I'm Gone", made top 40 from the project. Stuart co-produced the album with Brown, while also contributing on guitar, mandolin, and songwriting. The album's opening title track featured Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, and Harry Stinson on backing vocals. Also included were two covers: Billy Joe Shaver's "If I Give My Soul" and The Flying Burrito Brothers' "Wheels", as well as the mandolin instrumental "Marty Stuart Visits the Moon". Daniel Gioffre of AllMusic highlighted these three tracks in particular as being among the strongest on the album. Nash rated the album "B", stating, "As a singer, Marty Stuart has all the zip of unbuttered toast, and as a writer, too many of his songs float aimlessly...Yet Stuart has genuine love for the early country greats and injects his own work with such impassioned strains of old hillbilly styles, that he charms in spite of his limitations."

Following this album, MCA issued a compilation called The Marty Party Hit Pack in 1995, which contained singles from his previous MCA albums, as well as "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'", the previously unreleased "The Likes of Me" and "If I Ain't Got You", and two cover songs previously found on multi-artist tribute albums released in 1994. These were a rendition of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel", featuring The Jordanaires and previously found on It's Now or Never: The Tribute to Elvis, and The Band's "The Weight", featuring The Staple Singers and previously found on Rhythm, Country and Blues. Both of these cover songs were produced by Don Was, while Don Cook handled production on the two new songs. "The Likes of Me" was previously cut by Conway Twitty on his 1993 album Final Touches, on which Cook was also a producer. Both of these new songs were issued as singles in 1995, but neither entered the country music top 40. Jay Orr of New Country magazine criticized "The Likes of Me" and the two cover songs, but otherwise found the album a "neat summation" of Stuart's music. The Marty Party Hit Pack became Stuart's fourth and final gold album in 1998.

Stuart released Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best in 1996, which produced two more minor chart entries in the title track (another duet with Tritt) and "You Can't Stop Love" that year. The title track also won Stuart a Vocal Event of the Year award from the Country Music Association. Nash rated the album "A−", finding an influence of the Beatles in "Thanks to You" and of Delta blues in "The Mississippi Mudcat and Sister Sheryl Crow".

Career since the late 1990s

Stuart released another album in 1999 called The Pilgrim. It charted only one single that year with "Red, Red Wine and Cheatin' Songs". A concept album based around a love triangle, the album featured vocal contributions from Pam Tillis, George Jones, and Emmylou Harris, as well as a poem recited by Johnny Cash. An uncredited review of the album in AllMusic was largely favorable, stating that "no one's idea of a commercial country album, one has to admire the sheer ambition of the project, as well as the guts it took MCA Records to release what amounts to a unique and deeply personal artistic vision." After this album proved to be commercially unsuccessful, Stuart left MCA in 2000.

His next album was 2003's Country Music, released on Columbia Records. For this album, Stuart assembled a new backing band called Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, consisting of Harry Stinson on drums, Kenny Vaughan on guitar, and Brian Glenn on bass guitar. Included on the albums were covers of Porter Wagoner's "A Satisfied Mind", Carl Butler and Pearl's "Sundown in Nashville", and Johnny Cash's "Walls of a Prison", as well as the Merle Haggard duet "Farmer's Blues". Two singles from the album both charted: "If There Ain't, There Ought'a Be" and "Too Much Month (At the End of the Money)". Thom Jurek of AllMusic wrote that the album "is relentless in both its attack and in the pleasure it provides to the listener. There are hot licks everywhere, with great songs, vocals, and a tapestry of moods, textures, and shades that serve to leave one impression: Stuart's radical experimentation of the last ten years has resulted in his finest moment thus far."

In 2005, Stuart launched a custom record label, Superlatone Records, to issue overlooked Southern gospel and roots music recordings. Stuart released three critically acclaimed collections on Superlatone, Souls' Chapel, Badlands, and Live at the Ryman. In October 2005, Stuart released a concept album, Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota, which pays tribute to the Sioux culture in what is now South Dakota. In 2007, Stuart produced Porter Wagoner's final album on the predominantly punk label Epitaph Records.

In August 2022, he signed with Snakefarm Records, his first record deal in nearly 10 years. He also went on tour with the Fabulous Superlatives in Europe, with scheduled performances in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Sam Williams, Hank Williams' grandson, was his supporting act.