[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All of It, on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart is back with his first album in six years. It's out today, and it's called Altitude. Let's check out a track. This one is A Friend Of Mine.

[MUSIC - Marty-Stuart: A Friend Of Mine]

Marty Stuart: Did you ever have a flash of lightning strike at your feet?

Did you ever hold a treasure in the palm of your hand that you knew you couldn't keep?

Did you ever give your heart to someone who broke it time after time?

If you know what I'm talking about, you're a friend of mine.

Alison Stewart: That's my favorite track. I picked it. The Tennessean describes Marty as possessing "timeless cool" and he comes by that from experience. Marty's been a performer since he was just 13 years old, which is when he started touring as a mandolin player with Lester Flatt. He went on to play in bands with Doc Watson and Johnny Cash, and now his band, Marty Stuart & The Fabulous Superlatives are hitting the road on June 2nd. With me now for a release day listening party for his album Altitude, is Marty Stuart. Hi, Marty.

Marty Stuart: Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: I'm so happy to see you, and this is so interesting, because the album begins actually with an instrumental track, Lost Byrd Space Train. Why did you start the album with an instrumental?

Marty Stuart: Well, you know what, when I was growing up, I listened to the music that came out of Nashville, or even the West Coast. Instrumentals were a big part of that vocabulary, and The Superlatives, everybody's a player, everybody can play, and we all love instrumentals. We do. We often included instrumentals along the way, but that just seemed to be the proper way to start this record, for some reason.

Alison Stewart: Well, I want to play a little bit of it. Who are we going to hear?

Marty Stuart: Clarence's guitar, Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson, Marty Stewart, and Chris Scruggs.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen, Lost Byrd Space Train Scene One.

[MUSIC - Marty Stuart & The Fabulous Superlatives: Lost Byrd Space Train Scene One]

Alison Stewart: I just sit and listen to it. I got to get back to more questions. There are two more tracks on the album with the same name, but they're called Scene Two and an Epilogue. How do these tracks-- Is it a story arc you're trying to make with the song sequencing? What's going on?

Marty Stuart: Well, in the beginning, back to your original question, I think I like records, projects, or films, even, that when it first starts, when it appears and the speakers are on the screen, you go "Well, this is going to be a little different. This is not just your over-the-counter thought here. This is going to take me for a ride." Back to the thought of scoring films, a theme reappears from time to time.

I learned by scoring a film or two, that when you have to slow songs back to back, sometimes a 32nd instrumental can break the spell and reset the tempo in the listener's mind. It was probably more about that than it was a theme running through the record, perhaps.

Alison Stewart: My guests Marty Stuart, the new album is called Altitude, it is out today. I read this really interesting line from a No Depression piece about the album, and they said this about the record. The question facing any artist is-- How do you keep it sounding fresh and vital? Stuart has figured it out. What did you figure out?

Marty Stuart: Oh, that's a good question. [laughs] The best piece of advice that I ever had about that came from a fellow-- My professor of art was a fellow named Thomas B. Allen. He was the first guy who treated country music seriously, and illustrated and painted country music artists all the way back into the '50s. He pointed out to me that the word art appears in my name twice. I'm like, "Oh, okay."

I didn't really actually pay attention to that, but his advice to me was, "Follow your heart. Seems like you're well on your way, but you should always keep a project in front of you that knows more about you than you know about it, and that way, you'll be fresh." I went, "That's excellent advice," and I've tried to live by that all these years, and he was right.

Alison Stewart: It's good advice. The title track is called Altitude. What makes the song the right title track? People are going to go to that song right away, you know that. [laughs]

Marty Stuart: I love one-word titles. One-word titles get the job done, and Altitude seemed to speak for the whole project in scope and in concept, and the fact that it was just high above everything.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to Altitude.

[MUSIC - Marty-Stuart: Altitude]

Marty Stuart: Altitude, altitude.

To get to go and stay, must give all your love away.

Altitude, altitude.

Ten million miles high,

Light years off the ground,

Where time stands still beyond the speed of sound.

In altitude, altitude. It's a place--

Alison Stewart: My guest is Marty Stuart, his new album, which is out today, called Altitude. A lot of this album was written while you were on tour with the founders of The Byrds, co-founders, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman. When you're out on tour, and obviously, you're no stranger to touring, how do you write when you're moving around so much? Do you set aside a time of day? Are you the kind of person who's always got a notepad with them?

Marty Stuart: I always have a notepad, always. I love the road. It's kind of my office, and the bus is like a magic carpet that just transports me from one place to the next. To begin with, it's a totally unrealistic lifestyle. In some ways, it's a grind, but in some ways, it's a fairy tale. I just love the road, I love the rhythm of the road, I love the instant access to people. I love people, and I love knowing people's stories. I had a great conversation one time with Pete Seeger, and I asked him about Woody Guthrie.

He said Woody was like a traveling correspondent that rode a boxcar through the world. He looked to the right and to the left and reported on the human condition. I thought that was one of the most beautiful explanations of what all of us do. I use that to my inspiration. I just love writing on the road. I do.

Alison Stewart: Have you noticed or observed anything different in the past year, after the lockdown, as you're observing, you're thinking and absorbing what people are feeling?

Marty Stuart: I have. I'm a big fan of small-town America. I love the perceived quality of life and the values, and just the simplicity. Everywhere and everybody's complex, but it doesn't come with the same set of problems that big towns do. The thing that I noticed over the past several years was the vanishing of small-town America, because it seemed like everybody was trying to find the same box stores for their hometown, and the big chains.

It seems to me like in the past four or five years, there has been a return. The lights are coming back on in small-town America. Street after street and town after town, people were coming back home, perhaps after going out and making a lick in the world, and bringing it back to a quality of life that perhaps they once knew. I think that is one of the most positive things I've seen in the past two, three, four, five years.

Alison Stewart: I think even in big cities, neighborhoods become small towns, and I think during COVID, we all realized we needed to know each other, know our neighbors, take care of each other, and check-in.

Marty Stuart: Absolutely, those are the basics of life, and when we all abide by those, it's a better world.

Alison Stewart: I believe so. [laughs] I can tell you believe so as well. This dovetails into the next song, Sitting Alone, and this idea of loneliness. How do you keep-- I guess you just answered that. How do you deal with the loneliness of the road?

Marty Stuart: The road is not a lonely place to me. The road is actually a place that-- There's always something fun to think about, or creative to do on the road. Again, it's the office. Sitting Alone was a song that I wrote pre-pandemic. We had a day off, in Buffalo, New York. I felt this song coming on. I know the feeling, so I got a guitar and a pencil and paper. I wrote it down, and I had no idea what this song meant, but I instantly liked it.

I instantly could hear what it should sound like. After the pandemic struck, I looked at the words again and went, "Those probably are more relevant than I thought," at least to me. That's how Sitting Alone came to the atmosphere.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen.

[MUSIC - Marty-Stuart: Sitting Alone]

Marty Stuart: Sittin’ alone, watching the sun come up and go down

Sittin’ alone, looking at all the busy people in this town

Waitin’ on a breeze

Waitin’ on a friend

waitin’ on a dream to take me back again

Alison Stewart: Before I let you go, I want to ask you about the Congress of Country Music, which I believe is opening in your hometown.

Marty Stuart: Back to Hometown America.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Marty Stuart: I'm from Philadelphia, Mississippi, and when you drive across the state line of Mississippi, it says, "Welcome to Mississippi, the birthplace for America's music." That can pretty well be backed up, past, present, and future. It's amazing what has come from, and who has come from Mississippi. The north part of the state, I consider the spiritual home of rock and roll, Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, and across the Mississippi Delta, the home of the Blues, is B.B. King's Delta Heritage Center, Clarksdale Blues Museum.

The Grammys put in a beautiful facility on the campus of Delta State University. That's all in the north part of the state. In the east-central part of the state, where I live, is 35 miles away from Meridian, which is where the father of country music, Jimmie Rogers, came from. I consider that the country music zone in Mississippi. A few years back, after working a day with B.B. King, and saw what he did, I said, "Oh, I want to do this."

I went back to my hometown, and for the past 10 years, we worked really hard on establishing the Congress of Country Music, which is a cultural center dedicated to the furtherance of preservation of traditional country music. It houses my 20,000-piece collection. Phase One is done, the renovation of the old Hometown Theater, and it's beautiful. Season One was a success. We're about to get into Season Two, Dolly Parton kicks it off, and then Wynton Marsalis is coming.

Library of Congress is showing film, so it's happening. It's down there. Then we build the rest of it starting next year.

Alison Stewart: Marty Stuart's new album Altitude is out today. Marty, thanks for making time for us.

Marty Stuart: Thank you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It.

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