Quotes from Marty Stuart

The first picture of me that I know of was me in the crib wearing a pair of cowboy boots.

I wish I could have been in the control room at Capitol Studio A listening to the playback of 'Wichita Lineman' the first time it came into the atmosphere. It must have been a perfect moment in time.

It's hard for a country performer to make a living in a Beatles society.

Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.

The four things a hillbilly singer needs are a Cadillac, a Nudie suit, the right hairdo, and a pair of pointy-toed boots.

Sun Studios was where so much of American music exploded from.

I never claimed to be a great photographer.

I'm really taken by the fact that my photographs live on somebody's wall.

Anybody that looks at my photography, it blows my mind because it's my last hobby.

American Odyssey' will be an amazing adventure inside the musical walls of our cities. It's theater, and radio has always been great theater to me.

After something has run its course, you either become a parody and keep doing it, or tear it down and know the truth about it, warts and all.

Today the most outlaw thing you can possibly do in Nashville, Tennessee, is play country music.

I've always been a collector at heart.

Going back to the Byrds and 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo,' when country was kind of getting away from the fiddle and steel aspect, it took some rock & rollers to introduce a new generation to it, and it kinda put some things straight.

I got to Nashville on Labor Day weekend in 1972. And the Grand Ole Opry is still there, the Country Music Hall of Fame is still there. And the roots of country music are still there. It's where the authenticity and the empowering force lies.

Every time I hear a Garth Brooks record I tend to want to hear James Taylor.

Country music has taken so many forms, and I've always contended that it does not matter if the casual listener falls in love with country music through Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show or whomever - just get in and start digging!

My main electric guitar belonged to Clarence White, the great guitarist for the Byrds.

From the first time I played with Lester Flatt, I sensed an extreme amount of history around me.

I used to watch those syndicated, black-and-white Country Music Television shows from the '60s with my dad. And all of those people that played on our television set, they just felt like family to me. And I believed in my heart, as a little kid, that I would be doing that someday and I would know all those people and we would be friends.

I've been promoting the idea of a Jimmie Rodgers documentary for years.

I think the way country music is set up, we all came from a family background.

We need all those divisions of country music, firing on all cylinders.

There's something cool about playing 'Tempted' and then picking up the mandolin and playing 'Dark as a Dungeon' and standing on the classics. It's nice to just let soul rule.