Marty Stuart Donates Private Collection Of 22,000 Artifacts To The Country Music Hall Of Fame

Singer and musician Marty Stuart is known for his deep love for traditional country music and his dedication to preserving its history.

The child prodigy who left home at 12 to join Lester Flatt’s band as a mandolin and guitar player, then went on to play with Johnny Cash before becoming a solo artist, is both a collector and a historia

Stuart was prominently featured throughout Ken Burns 2019 PBS
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series on country music, he’s been collecting items for more than 50 years, and he’s building a country music multi-plex called the Congress of Country Music in his hometown of Philadelphia Mississippi. (The Ellis Theater has already opened with the museum to follow, possibly sometime next year.)

And now, Stuart has given his entire collection of artifacts, featuring more than 100 instruments, some 1000 stage costumes, and more than 50 original song manuscripts, to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

The announcement came Tuesday .

“This is no ordinary donation,” noted Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He then listed just a handful of the long list of unique items that are part of Stuart’s collection.

“Original song manuscripts from Hank Williams, Mother Maybelle Carter, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and more. A railroad lantern owned by ‘The Singing Brakeman’ himself, the father of country music, Jimmie Rodgers. Guitars owned by Charley Pride, Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, and others. Stage costumes from Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, Johnny Cash, and so on.”

It also includes thousands of photographs Stuart has taken through the years. He’s written books featuring his photography, as well as had some of his work on display at various museums.

Stuart’s massive collection will be added to the CMHOF’s already expansive holdings.

“No other repository anywhere can match the richness, the depth, or the significance of this museum’s collection,” Young said.

As part of the arrangement, the Country Music Hall of Fame will work with Stuart’s Congress of Country Music in Philadelphia to coordinate rotating displays of artifacts, as well as establish educational programs there.

During the ceremony, Young shared a few lines from an essay Stuart wrote as a six-grader growing up in Mississippi. (The essay was written for a school assignment on “What I Want to Be in Life.”)

“I would like to have a band the world really likes,” Young read, quoting the 11-year old Stuart. “I want my band to be popular by their looks. I’m going to have my band dress in nice clothes and keep their hair cut.”

The audience burst into laughter.

“Marty closed this prophetic essay by writing, ‘A musician is what I have been wanting to be, it is my true goal for life, and I hope to accomplish this goal and do it well, because music will be my love forever.”

Stuart said his country music collection began with an autograph his mom got from Minnie Pearl when the comedian visited their hometown during the 1960s. Then, Stuart began adding to it.

“The collection was a labor of love that started when acts were coming through Philadelphia. “I would ask the guitar player for a pick or a set list or get an autographed record or anything. I just wanted pieces of this world up here (in Nashville) because it was touchstones to a land I wanted to have, and people I wanted to be part of.”

Later, as Stuart became part of the country music scene himself, he began securing items on a bigger scale.

As he talked about donating the collection, and what it means, he said throughout his life and career, he’s stayed closely connected to “wo families.’

“I’ve lived out of two families…the family of country music and my people of Mississippi.”

And, as a champion of traditional country music, he saw his native state, which is home to artists like Jimmie Rodgers, Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty, Hank Cochran, and others, as the perfect spot to highlight the genre. The state already honors rock and roll as the birthplace of Elvis, and the blues through the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in the Delta region.

“And I thought, this needs to be the spiritual home of country music, and the land of Jimmie Rodgers, to fit in alongside Tupelo and Mr. King’s place in Tupelo,” Stuart said.

He expressed his gratitude to many in Mississippi, both from Philadelphia and at the state level, who’ve supported his efforts for the Congress of Country Music. Many traveled to Nashville to celebrate the announcement.

He noted a number of artists had performed at the new theater there since it opened about a year-and-a-half ago to include his own band, Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, his wife, Connie Stevens, Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Ashley McBryde, and so many more.

“Not bad for a 500-seat theater,” he said with a smile.

The announcement of his donation to the CMHOF wouldn’t have been complete without music, and many of the artists performed did it with guitars from the Stuart collection. Fellow Mississippians Chapel Hart and Charlie Worsham sang “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” with Worsham playing a 1970 Fender Telecaster once owned by Pop Staples (of the Staple Singers).

Chris Stapleton performed Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me” (a song recorded by Johnny Cash) as he played a 1939 Martin D-45 acoustic owned by Hank Williams, then later Johnny Cash.

And Vince Gill took the stage with George Jones 1958 Martin D-28 guitar.

Gill, who has been friends with Stuart for more than five decades, said the two, only recently, had begun writing songs together.

He sang one they wrote called “Marty and Me.”

The lyrics include: two rambling boys who shared the same dream, broke out mamas’ hearts when we packed up to leave.

Then the chorus continues with what they found when pursuing their country music dreams:

Our heroes were strangers who welcomed us in

Passed on their wisdom just like an old friend.

They gave us the courage to live wild and free.

Here’s to the story of Marty and me.

Gill said through the years, since Stuart played with so many legends, people would often say Stuart was born at the wrong time, that perhaps he should have been part of the generation prior to this one.

“No, he shouldn’t have,” Gill said. “He was born at just the right time because he we needed him. I don’t think I’ve had met anybody that’s more reverent, respectful, and graceful about loving this music than Marty Stuart. Hands down, he’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

Stuart, too, performed, to round out the day’s event. After all, the music is the heart of it all.