Born in Philadelphia on September 30, 1958, (John) Marty Stuart was performing country music in Neshoba County as a boy, fronting the Musical Rangers at age ten and drawing lasting inspiration from the county's converging country, rock, gospel, blues, and Choctaw musical traditions. After touring with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers, he left for Nashville on Labor Day, 1972, not quite fourteen years old, to join Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass as Flatt's mandolin player until Flatt's death in 1979. He later worked with Vassar Clements, Doc Watson, and Johnny Cash's back-up band during 1980-'85. By the late 1980s he had released two solo albums and soon became a flamboyant star of the New Traditionalist movement, with hits including "Tempted," "Now That's Country," "Little Things," duets with Travis Tritt, and "Hillbilly Rock." Inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1992, Stuart built a career as an award-winning instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, bandleader, and collector devoted both to preserving country music's history and traditions and to carrying them forward through recordings, touring, broadcasting, producing for Johnny Cash and Porter Wagoner, collecting and exhibiting memorabilia, publishing photographs of country legends, and supporting Mississippi culture, including early support for the Mississippi Country Music Trail.
