It’s not easy to upstage Marty Stuart. Since 1989, when the Mississippi bandleader signed his star-making deal with MCA and set out to “put the image back into country”, he’s walked the boards in scarves, rhinestones and hand-stitched bolero jackets, with that get-up topped off in later years by a shock of silver hair that makes him resemble an avuncular werewolf. “When you come out dressed up like Porter Wagoner and call your band the Fabulous Superlatives,” he drawls, “you better be able to do something.”
Of course, the main event at a Stuart show is the bob and weave of the man’s picking, which drove him to commercial peaks on 1989’s Hillbilly Rock, 1991’s Tempted and 1992’s (all gold-sellers), and often thrills on this year’s. But for all his skill and showmanship, you might find your eye wandering to the so-called ‘Clarence’ Telecaster that has spent four decades vying with Keith Richards’ Micawber and Bruce Springsteen’s Mutt as the most storied snub-nosed Fender in history.
