Marty Stuart

“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.”

“If you look back into the Superlatives' body of work, we've always included instrumentals.”

“My local radio station, WHOC, Philadelphia, Mississippi - '1490 on your radio dial, a thousand watts of pure pleasure' - it was a beautiful station. And I loved everything I heard. But it was country music that touched my heart.”

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

“More than anybody in the music industry, the Staple Singers were like family to me.”

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

“I can't remember when I didn't have an instrument around.”

“Being sober and clear-eyed changes everything.”

“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.”

“As a photographer, God's light in Southern California is something unlike I've ever seen on planet Earth. There's a beauty about it, especially in the afternoon that is so pretty.”

“I've always loved gospel music. Being raised in Mississippi, it was kind of part of the atmosphere down there.”

“We need a new Hank Williams, a new Jimmy Webb. We need new writers, a new Tom Petty. We need people that write what they feel and what they see - things that are relevant.”

“Rock 'n' roll entertained my head but there was something about country music that touched my heart.”

“As big as the industry is now and as gargantuan and stretched out with as many buses and trucks as there are now, it is still a big old dysfunctional family in my mind.”

“When country music is doing its job, it reports on the good, bad and indifferent of our human condition.”

“I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.”

“Well, the first band was at nine, and I was on the road when I was 12 with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers.”

“The Ryman and the Grand Ole Opry, if you're a Southern boy, is just a way of life.”

“If I go into the Mississippi Delta at pitch black midnight and put on a Robert Johnson record, it's hard to sit in the car because it's pretty powerful.”

“I make no apology about being a hillbilly.”