Whoever Wrote "Never meet your heroes" Must Not Have Known Marty Stuart

What happens when an icon is as down to earth as they come, while also being a genius, and cool as hell

Thanks for taking time to visit the text version of the podcast series Southern Songs and Stories! This post is a continuation of our Substack series of posts giving you the scripts of our audio and transcripts of our interviews. To hear the episode, simply search for Southern Songs and Stories on any podcast app, or visit us at southernsongsandstories.com for that and much more.

Update: it’s a full-on live music month! Today I go to AVL Fest and get to emcee one of my favorite regional bands, a group that is profiled here in their podcast and even a documentary video — Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters. Their set precedes another artist whose music I love, SG Goodman. You can check out her episode here.

Tomorrow is more emcee work, at one of my all-time favorite venues, The Grey Eagle, where I get to bring on stage the Larry Keel Experience, among others. Should I wear my Green Acres Music Hall t-shirt? That was my first taste of Keel’s incendiary acoustic guitar.

Next week, I hope to be interviewing Old Crow Medicine Show when they play in Charlotte. They are headlining the Earl Scruggs Music Festival along with our current podcast guest Marty Stuart. Good times!

Marty Stuart

Bluegrass, Country and A Whole Lot In Between: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Marty Stuart 

Touching on his decades in music with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Johnny Cash, his friendship with Tom Petty as well as being in the Byrds reunion tour, his role in the Ken Burns documentary on country music and more, including excerpts of his music

[“Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 1)” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, from Altitude, continuing as bed]

When you look at the big picture, Miles Davis and Marty Stuart have a lot in common. Bonnie Raitt comes to mind as well. Like Marty Stuart, both Miles Davis and Bonnie Raitt played their first professional gigs with their heroes, artists who were foundational to their respective genres; Miles Davis getting his start with Charlie Parker, and Bonnie Raitt playing one of her first shows with Mississippi Fred McDowell. For Marty Stuart, he joined Lester Flatt’s band at the age of 13 before going on to become a member of Johnny Cash’s band, and eventually striking out to become a hitmaker himself. 

Very few artists have enjoyed the kind of career that Marty Stuart has, from the overall arc of having one foot in an era which birthed bluegrass and country music and the other in the era which succeeded it, nor have many music artists succeeded on so many levels as he has, let alone for five decades. In the time we have on this episode, we could spend all of it simply listing and describing his album credits, collaborations, accolades and awards, as well as his many other credits in film, television, and his work in cultural preservation.. 

Marty Stuart touches on some of these milestones in the conversation we had before his performance in Lenoir, NC, including his time with Lester Flatt and Lester’s longtime bandmate and fellow icon, Earl Scruggs, his friendship with rock and roll hall of famer Tom Petty, how being a part of the Byrds reunion tour remains a personal top ten experience in his life, and much more. Also, we welcome classic country and bluegrass DJ and founding member of the Austin Lounge Lizards, Tom Pittman, to the show.

I am your host Joe Kendrick. Welcome to Southern Songs and Stories, with our episode on Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives.     

[SSaS theme song with VO: Southern Songs and Stories is a proud part of the lineup at public radio WNCW as well as Osiris Media, the leading storyteller in music. Follow Southern Songs wherever you follow podcasts, with more at southernsongsandstories.com. Engage with us on social media -- Southern Songs and Stories on Facebook and @southstories on Instagram as well as our YouTube Channel @JoeKendrickNC]

Earl Scruggs (L) and Marty Stuart (R)

I’ll be honest: Marty Stuart is about as big a fish as I have ever landed for this podcast, so my pressure gauge was going to be high coming into this interview no matter what. But, wouldn’t you know, the day that I went to interview him, I was delayed a bit in leaving for what I expected was an hour and a half drive, but was delayed much more when I ran into the seemingly endless construction on Interstate 26 coming into Asheville, NC, where I was to rendezvous with Tom Pittman and his wife Kathryn before heading to the venue in Lenoir where we would talk with Marty Stuart and then see his show. 

So I was late, which almost never happens, but just by ten minutes, and luckily Marty Stuart and his team were okay with that, which put me and Tom back at ease once we arrived. It may have had a stutter-start, but the interview itself went quite smoothly -- we will let you be the judge of that. 

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives are headliners at the upcoming 2024 Earl Scruggs Music Festival in nearby Tryon, NC, so I began our conversation by asking about his time with Earl Scruggs and Earl’s impact on his music. Here is Marty Stuart:

00:01:37 Marty Stuart 

Well, Earl, you know, is like family and Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. They were like family to us in our living room down in Mississippi by way of their television show and their recordings. Hello. The first two records I ever owned in my life was the Johnny Cash record, a Flatt & Scruggs record, and it's that deep. 

And of course, Lester gave me a job when I was 13, and he and Earl had split up a couple of years before. So there was, you know, bickering and silence in between them at that point. But you know, after I got to know Earl, it's like they were really the same guy, just different sides of the mountain. 

They helped invent each other and what they both did is they were great architects, musical architects. They were pioneers that helped create the road we all travel on today. And I tell you it still works, because when I get down in the dumps or whatever I get on YouTube and I watch Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the foggy mountain boys, some of their old TV shows. Everything's alright. The sun comes back out after that. 

And I'm really proud of what's going on in Shelby. We played the first concert at the Don Gibson Theater and the Scruggs Center was just kind of, you know, a dream at that point. And the courthouse, there is beautiful now, of course. And the program is great. And Shelby has been a. A beacon to me because we're doing the same thing in my hometown. We're building a Cultural Center called the Congress of Country Music. And boy, if you want to do something, if you run out of anything to do, go put one of those places in the middle of Mississippi or North Carolina. They put the spaceship down, but there is a rhythm to it. And if it's supposed to happen, it usually does. And the right people come around. But I'm really proud. Of the Scruggs Center and the Don Gibson Center and Shelby. Because, you know, I've I've used them a lot of times as an example to folks in Mississippi is like, they're doing this in Carolina, and it can be done. 

00:03:32 Joe Kendrick 

Well, talking about the Congress of country music, I just love that, that, that title for the museum. Can you update us on how things are going? I mean, that's a pretty large facility. It's like the square footage is, is going to be a lot. Am I right?

00:03:46 Marty Stuart 

It's it's about a city block and the cornerstone is the old city theater, the Ellis Theater, which is up and running for about a year and a half now. People are playing there and filling it up. It's only a 500 seat theater, but it's a beauty. And the rest of the campus is being drawn right now. Money is in the bank pretty much -- the state has been a great partner. And so I think by the end of the year, dust will start flying then. 

00:04:12 Joe Kendrick 

How is it that you got into the the habit of collecting this much memorabilia? Because this is the largest private collection of country music artifacts in the world, am I right? 

00:04:27 Marty Stuart 

So I’m told! The insurance bill could prove that, but I was always a fan, as a kid. Gospel quartets, or you know, country bands, would come through my town occasionally, and to get an autograph or a signed album or a guitar pick from one of the musicians that was, that was my thing and it just put it all my bedroom when I was a kid. It was like, I thought it was the museum. It was treasures from a world I wanted to be a part of, and when I first went to work in Nashville, I would see Lester, for instance, you know take off his tire because of that. Too much makeup on it. Too many TV shows. Throw it in the garbage can. I have that or he right out a set list and water it up and throw it in the garbage: “Can I have that?” It started like that. It just looked important, too important to throw away. 

00:05:20 Marty Stuart 

But in the early 80s, everything started changing in Nashville when the Urban Cowboy movie hit. The, the look, feel changed, cast, everything about country music changed and all of a sudden the old timers were kind of put out in the pasture because they weren't young and hip and cool anymore to that world, and I had a foot in both worlds. But those the people that raised me that I loved, but I was also young and, you know, trying to make whippersnapper music, but all of a sudden those treasures from those people started winding up in junk stores and thrift shops around Nashville. The first thing I found that really turned my head around was a $75 hand tooled, like a western saddle. It was a train case, ladies makeup case and it had Patsy Cline on the front of it, ah, “This is wrong.” So it was just really about rescuing things that were precious, like family treasures. Like, it'd be like walking into a thrift store and seeing your mama’s, you know, purse or something. It's like that. Can't you got to. You got to take it home with you. So it started like that. It started in my bedroom. And then a little warehouse, warehouses and now there's a Cultural Center being built around it. 

00:06:38 Joe Kendrick 

Tell us about the, that generation of players like you mentioned in the 80s. That was the sea change moment of kind of a shift in eras and maybe comment on where we are now, where you see these generations that are coming into the forefront now versus you know? Just, how many you know, icons that you've worked with? You know Vassar and Doc and Earl and Johnny Cash and and on and on, if you have any observations about that generation compared to who's coming up. 

00:07:08 Marty Stuart 

Everything about the face value of country music changes every Monday morning. Starting with the Bristol Sessions in 1920, 40 it was about evolving, becoming accepted by the world. Which country music pretty much has now, and it's hard to go tell a kid who's filling up a stadium you're doing something wrong, you know, they're, that's not how it worked. So you find, I find that I find a place where I believe and I know that I fit in. And I stand there and I like the timeless era, the timeless end of country music, the divinely ordered. You know, bedrock of country music. But the thing that I find in common that has never changed is bluegrass festivals because that's where people like myself, Jerry Douglass and Bush, Vince Gill, Travis Tritt, Mark O'Connor -- we all learned to play alongside of our heroes on stage or at camp fires, pickins at bluegrass festivals because it was accessible. It was like a big classroom. 

00:08:14 Marty Stuart 

And the thing about it is it's really cool if you go to MerleFest or wherever those people like me and that my generation of people that learned from those old masters, they're now teaching a bunch of young kids. You know, Sam's Bill Monroe now, or whatever. You know, I see a young guy like Wyatt Ellis playing the mandolin he's [inaudible] looking, but there's always a new crop of kids that pick and sing and write, and bluegrass festivals are a wonderful, authentic place to find your voice and to lift off from. 

[“Shuckin’ the Corn” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, from Live At The Ryman, excerpt]

Speaking of live bluegrass, that is the Flatt & Scruggs composition “Shuckin’ the Corn”, from Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives album Live at the Ryman, recorded in 2003. As you heard Marty introduce him, that was Charlie Cushman playing banjo, and it is noteworthy that Charlie and Marty had a similar trajectory with the beginning of their careers, both of which began incredibly early in life. For Marty, he made his professional debut on that same stage at the age of 13 as a member of Lester Flatt’s band, Nashville Grass, having been introduced to Lester Flatt by Nashville Grass mandolinist Roland White, who discovered Stuart a year earlier when he was playing in the gospel group The Sullivans. 

Charlie Cushman was fascinated by bluegrass from the age of four, and his Saturday afternoons were filled with TV shows on WSM from Nashville -- The Ernest Tubb Show, The Wilburn Brothers Show, The Porter Wagoner Show, The Grand Ole Opry, and his favorite, The Flatt and Scruggs Show. It did not take long for him to pick up the banjo, and by age ten he was playing on radio station WPHC in Waverly, Tennessee each Saturday night on the live broadcasts of the "Tennessee Valley Jamboree". For both Charlie Cushman and Marty Stuart, the die was cast very early. 

While Charlie Cushman has played bluegrass throughout his career, Marty Stuart’s next high profile gig after Lester Flatt retired in 1978 was in country icon Johnny Cash’s band in 1980. And country music is what comes to mind to so many people with Marty Stuart, who came to fame as a Nashville hitmaker in the mid 1980s and early 90s. He frequently collaborated with country star Travis Tritt, with whom he won his first Grammy award, and first Country Music Association award, in 1992. There would be many more nominations yielding a variety of awards in years to come, from both Grammy and Country Music Association awards as well as the Academy of Country Music, International Bluegrass Music Association, Americana Music Honors & Awards, and the Golden Globe Awards.    

While he and the Fabulous Superlatives play plenty of acoustic shows and dip into their bluegrass songbook regularly, Marty Stuart’s main mode of musical expression is now electric, and leans in the direction of country rock pioneered by The Byrds and Gram Parsons, as you can hear on this song from their 2023 album Altitude titled “Vegas”.

[“Vegas” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, from Altitude, excerpt]

00:09:08 Joe Kendrick 

You're in a pretty sweet spot now musically. I mean the. The the fashion I don't. It's probably not fair to call it a fashion, but cosmic country is a big deal now and it seems like you've never really wavered from that as much as, as the, the hour hand has come back around to you in that sense. 

00:09:31 Marty Stuart 

I don't even know what the word means, Cosmic Country -- it's out there, I guess, but everybody I've known, including me as we've always been out there, you have to be out there to be a musician and and to to really tune in,do the right stuff. Bill Monroe was out there, Flatt & Scruggs were out there. The Stanley Brothers was out there as you can get. Whatever out there mean. It's not drugs and alcohol. To me, it's just it's a way of thinking. It's a way of thinking. And to be totally open and accept all strands of music and turn it into something that hopefully becomes an authentic strand of American Music. 

00:10:18 Joe Kendrick 

When you did the Busy Bee Cafe album, you had a couple of Lester Flatt numbers. Do you ever play any Lester Flatt numbers or any of that? Earl and Earl? I'm sorry. Flatt and Scruggs material? 

00:10:31 Marty Stuart 

When we had our TV show, I think we did a couple of Flatt & Scruggs songs, but quite honestly, they're a little too close to my heart. I still, I still hear Lester singing on or and Earl playing them. And. I I feel like it's it's kind of sacred territory that I don't impose upon. I do better listening to it than I do play in it. I there was only one of them. 

It's kind of like Johnny Cash. When I was in Johnny Cash's band, we used to comment. Anybody can be Elvis because there's a lot of Elvis impersonators, but nobody can authentically be a Johnny Cash act and pretty much. That's still, there's a lot of people trying, but there's, and John was a once in a lifetime character, Flatt & Scruggs are a once in a lifetime band. Everybody plays their songs. But nobody plays them quite like them. So I I think I tend to shy away from it for that reason. 

00:11:26 Joe Kendrick 

Well, you've got the Tom Petty cover, which is pretty new. “I need to know”. So that's got to be, you know, firmly in your wheelhouse. I mean, who doesn't love Tom Petty? But is there, like you say, Flatt and Scruggs is a little too close to your heart to to really take it on. Are there other artists that you would like to cover or maybe somebody else that you haven't covered yet? 

00:11:48 Marty Stuart 

The the the thing that I find out, the deeper I get. Is that some songs ought to be left alone! [laughs] 

00:11:58 Tom Pittman 

Well, not left alone, but listened to. 

00:12:00 Marty Stuart 

Listened to. That's a good way to put it. Tom Petty was a buddy of mine. The Heartbreakers were North star. You know, kind of big brothers to me and the Superlatives, and when that project came around, I remember a conversation that Tom and I had one time. And he said, you know, what about that country music? He said he talked about, kind of real rock'n'roll kind of disappearing. And he said there's no great real rock'n'roll much left anymore. I said, well, we have the same problem in country music. He says, yeah, country music kind of sounds like bad rock'n'roll with a fiddle to me on that. That's a pretty good analogy. So in this, when this project came around, I went, I don't know if we should take on the Heartbreaker song, but Mike Campbell, his guitar player kind of gave us his blessing. 

Alright, Campbell thinks it's alright. We'll, we'll. Give it a crack. So I think the track turned out pretty good. 

[“I Need To Know” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, from Petty Country, excerpt]

00:14:09 Joe Kendrick 

Maybe we can talk about your band a little bit, Marty. I know Tom is fairly good friends with Chris and the Superlatives I mean, that says it all. There's, they are fabulous can. Yeah. Can you brag on your band a little bit? 

00:14:22 Tom Pittman 

They are both fabulous and superlative. 

00:14:26 Marty Stuart 

Oh, absolutely, that's no problem. We were talking on the way over here with the Lady uh, Kimberly, who is one of the directors here, and we're talking, going to school. Chris Scruggs has a son named Ben, who's nine years old, who I'm convinced -- it takes one to know one. He wouldn't go to school a day and his life if he could just get on the bus and play the guitar. I know that look because I'm one of those characters. I mean, I was practicing my autograph from the 3rd grade, started my first band when I was nine, so band life I get. 

And when I was in school, I could tell I really didn't know much about algebra, but I could tell you who was in Merle Haggard's band and what kind of guitars they played or the Buckaroos or Johnny Cash's band or Flatt & Scruggs, when they were together, Bill Monroe Band. You know, I was. I was that student of all that. And I know about bands. 

And from the first moment that the Superlatives came together, I saw Kenny playing on TV with Lucinda Williams. And I was trying to take a year off and I thought, oh, look at him. He's like Luther Perkins in Johnny Cash’s band -- quirky bird that plays his heart out. 

So the next thing I know I bump into him, “let's have lunch. What are you doing?” He said nothing. I said, we need to start a band. OK, so by the time the check came, my job was to find us a drummer. His job was to find us a bass player and we worked it out. 

And we've been together almost 23 years now. And I think I'm bragging here. But those bands I mentioned a minute ago put The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and whoever else, alongside of that, but people that had the privilege of seeing those bands. I think 20 years later, but I got to see those guys one time and it made a difference ... the Allman Brothers. You know, those kind of -- Grateful Dead, whoever and they carry that with them for the rest of their life and they talk about it. 

00:16:15 Tom Pittman 

I saw Flatt & Scruggs in 1969, little realizing that they are on the verge of breaking up. But I am so proud of that, that I got. I'm very few people that I know who got to see Flatt & Scruggs because they broke up before most of them were born. But I got to see them one time. 

00:16:33 Marty Stuart 

OK, case in point, Tom's talking about and and. I think the Superlatives are one of those bands and that people go back. I got to see those guys one time and it was a good night or a bad night. But they they got to see them. 

I think bands are like football or baseball or hockey teams. That is, it's it's a way for people to invest in and it's it's an escape. You can hang your hopes and dreams on the right band and watch them, you know, go flying and hope they keep it going for a while. It's it's it's. It's a good morale booster for people. 

[jump to]

00:18:18 Tom Pittman 

But I yeah. I remember hearing about the Fabulous Superlatives and. To me it was sort of like the first time I. Saw Richard Thompson. Everybody that this, there was a magazine back then called. What was it called the? What folk music magazine that was just always raving about them. I thought. Nobody's that good. Yeah, I got to see him up in Edmonton, Alberta. And I said I'm going to go over there and I'm going to watch this. And it wasn't long before I said, “I see!” 

And it was the same way with The fabulous Superlatives. I got to see the the Byrds Reunion tour. Twice. I saw it in the. 

00:19:07 Marty Stuart 

Did you!

00:19:09 Tom Pittman 

Was it Knoxville or Kingsport? Somewhere up there?

00:19:14 Marty Stuart 

Maybe Bristol? 

Tom Pittman

I saw it. I bought the tickets for that. But then I happened to be in Austin. When it came there and I thought, wow, there's no way there's going to be a ticket. And I got one. And I, I was totally impressed with that. Chris Scruggs said as I. Understand it had never played pedal steel before. 

Marty

Well, he played some but that I think that was the deepest assignment he'd probably ever. Been faced with. 

Tom

Well, that's about as steep as you can get -- trying to be Lloyd Green. 

00:19:39 Marty Stuart 

Yeah. And. That tour was magic. Every night, every single night. And you know, there's just been a, a new double album released. That's from that tour. That's really good. 

So if you missed the tour it is a good way to catch up. 

00:19:56 Joe Kendrick 

Oh yeah. 

00:19:57 Tom Pittman 

That's another one of those things I'm going to say. I saw that, yeah. 

00:20:00 Marty Stuart 

I hear you and I,. that's one of my in my top 10 things about that I've ever been a part of. It's great. 

00:20:07 Tom Pittman 

Just. And it's just hard to realize it was that long ago. 

00:20:11 Marty Stuart 

Yeah. 

00:20:13 Tom Pittman 

50 years. Since those recordings were made and only two people left alive out of. The group and. And he went out to look around to see who could fill the bill as being the band and the Byrds. You got to be the Byrds and you were. You were as good as. Everybody.

00:20:32 Marty Stuart 

Well, we got to be the Byrds and be like we were when we were kids and playing that music. And Roger and Chris got to be Roger and Chris and didn't have to put that with a band. So everybody left at the end of the night happy. So it was. Great. No drama, great music. 

00:20:48 Tom Pittman 

Yeah. Was stunned at how well. You. Your guitar playing in particular I, I thought. He spent some time studying those ... licks. 

00:21:00 Marty Stuart 

Oh, I went. I went. I had to go back to the woodshed. It was it. It lived it. It lived in my head. But I haven't. I had to really bone up on those. 

00:21:04 Tom Pittman 

Well you did a great job. If I'd had my eyes closed, it could have been Clarence. 

00:21:11 Marty Stuart 

I know the difference, but I, I hope that I got close to the spirit of The Byrds. 

00:21:14 Tom Pittman 

You've got you've got totally on the spirit if you another two were different. It was inconsequential. I was. And I saw it twice. And I came away thinking that both times, but. 

00:21:22 Marty Stuart 

I'm so glad you got to see it. 

00:21:28 Tom Pittman 

Well, he must have spent a lot of time working on that, and it's played on the original guitar too. 

00:21:37 Marty Stuart 

The guitar has a bigger following than I do. Everybody wants to see that guitar. And when, yeah, when somebody walks up and has a look at her.

00:21:42 Joe Kendrick 

Wants to see Clarence's guitar. 

00:21:46 Marty Stuart 

 I just hand it to him, you know. That's what it's for. I share it over, yeah. 

00:21:52 Tom Pittman 

Well, I'm glad it ended up with you. 

00:21:54 Marty Stuart 

Oh. When I first got it, there was a lot of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he don't deserve it. And. And I was the chief among everybody going. You're exactly right. I don't deserve this guitar. But I happen to have it, so I'm going to have to figure out something to do with it. So his wife, Clarence’s wife, Susie. Clarence wants you to have this guitar. And you're the right keeper for it. And when she said “keeper”, that is a big responsibility. 

00:22:22 Tom Pittman 

But you're not only a keeper of the instruments, you're a keeper of the the whole. Music, you know, it's. You know what it ought to be and you've kept it going 

Marty

I love it. 

00:22:40 Tom Pittman 

I love it too. Amongst the people that you, well you were one of a very few that were kind of as you said, foot in both generations. Because you got a very early start, but you were you were not going to do at the very beginning and. 

00:22:50 Marty Stuart 

Hmm. 

00:22:58 Tom Pittman 

You've just been a wonderful student. 

00:23:01 Marty Stuart 

And that's what I am. I'm still a student. I'm still a fan and I think that's what keeps it fresh and moving. 

00:23:05 Tom Pittman 

That's what I'm. Quite unbeknownst to me, I got asked to interview Dayton Duncan about. About his Ken Burns series and. I went in there, I haven't seen anything. You know, I knew it was going on. And one of the first things I said to him, you know, the person that really knows this stuff that you ought to talk to is Marty Stuart. And he said, oh, he's got more on screen time than anybody. And I was glad to hear that. 

00:23:40 Marty Stuart 

Oh, I love Dayton. That, that show we worked on for eight years and it was a labor of love because I knew I knew again. Everybody won, everything Ken touches becomes curriculum and I knew that it was. It was a great balance for country’s. There's so much contemporary country music that makes the pages now a lot of the heart, soul and roots stuff doesn't quite get as much ink. But I knew that Ken’s presence in our world would serve as a balance and all of a sudden we would be in the same air with the Roosevelts and baseball and jazz and prohibition and the Vietnam War. The national parks, that's the air he travels in. And that's what happened. Country music went up in there and found a whole lot of new people. 

00:24:26 Tom Pittman 

You know that. I'm so glad it is. 

00:24:28 Marty Stuart 

Me, too. 

[“Mojave” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, from Way Out West, continuing as bed]

Closing out this episode with Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives’ song “Mojave” from the 2017 album Way Out West. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us, and we hope you can help us again by spreading awareness of what we are doing. It is as easy as telling a friend and following this podcast on your platform of choice, both of which are quick, easy and free! From there it takes just a moment to give us a top rating, and where it is an option, a review! It makes a great difference because the more top reviews and ratings we get, the more visible we become to everyone on those platforms, which means that more people just like you connect with artists like Marty Stuart, and Fabulous Superlatives Kenny Vaughan, Chris Scruggs and Harry Stinson. 

This series is a part of the lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available at https://www.osirispod.com/. You can also hear new episodes on Bluegrass Planet Radio at https://www.bluegrassplanetradio.com/. Thanks to Tom Pittman for joining in the conversation -- you can hear Tom every Sunday morning on public radio WNCW on his bluegrass show The Gospel Truth, followed by his classic country show Country Gold. Thanks also to Jaclyn Anthony for producing the radio adaptations of this series on public radio WNCW, where we worked with Joshua Meng who wrote and performed our theme songs.  I am your host and producer Joe Kendrick, and this is Southern Songs and Stories: the music of the South and the artists who make it.