Hank Williams Jr. with special guest Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives

“Altitude,” Stuart’s newest album, was recorded in Nashville with his longtime band, The Fabulous Superlatives. The collection finds Stuart picking up where he left off on 2017’s “Way Out West,” exploring a cosmic country landscape populated by dreamers and drifters, misfits and angels, honky-tonk heroes and lonesome lovers. It would be easy for an artist as accomplished as Stuart to rest on his laurels at this point in his career, but “Altitude” instead showcases the work of a searcher with an insatiable appetite for growth and reflection, one whose ambition, much like his keen wit and rich imagination, only seems to grow with each release. A Country Music Hall of Famer, five-time Grammy Award winner, and AMA Lifetime Achievement honoree, Stuart knows a thing or two about standing the test of time. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Miss., he landed his first big gig in Lester Flatts’ band at the age of 13, and by 21, he was working on the road and in the studio with Johnny Cash. Though Stuart built his early reputation backing up country and bluegrass royalty, it wasn’t long before Nashville recognized him as a star in his own right, and over the course of 40-plus years as a solo artist, he has released more than 20 major label albums, scoring platinum sales, hit singles, and just about every honor the industry could bestow along the way. Stuart has emerged as an unofficial caretaker of the culture, too, spending much of his career rescuing and collecting country music artifacts from throughout the genre’s history. The first piece he picked up? Patsy Cline’s makeup kit, which he bought from a junk shop for $75. These days, Stuart, who Rolling Stone calls “one of the world’s foremost country music experts and archivists,” has roughly 20,000 pieces in his collection, including a handwritten copy of Hank Williams’ “I Saw The Light” and Johnny Cash’s first black performance suit. While select items have been exhibited everywhere from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to the Louvre, Stuart is hard at work building a dedicated arts and cultural center to preserve and display it all in his hometown of Philadelphia.