Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions

The 9513.com

In the liner notes for his new album, Marty Stuart beautifully describes a moving, virtually spiritual experience during Hurricane Katrina, when a train roared past where he stood, five miles outside of his southern boyhood home. “Every place I’ve ever been, most everything I’d ever done and seen seemed to have been ripped from inside of me and hauled off on a northbound, backwoods Mississippi ghost train.” It was his epiphany, when he knew that he was ready to write again, and “it was long past time to play some hard-hitting country music.” Thus was born the idea for his latest project, Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, on Sugar Hill Records–his first on the label since Busy Bee Café in 1982. And with traditional country music teetering on the precipice of extinction, Stuart–ever the music preservationist–feels even more so that the timing of this record is right: “It’s the music I most cherish…It’s too precious to let slip away.”

RCA’s Studio B in Nashville is hallowed ground, where so many legendary country greats laid down their tracks over the years. Now a museum, Stuart got special permission to record in the room–with its sought-after sonic warmth–where he first recorded when he performed with Lester Flatts at age 13. Choosing to make his record there graces the project with an historical authenticity that could be found nowhere else. His respectful reverence for those musicians that went before him is apparent, yet Ghost Train is not a hopeless re-hash of the past. Stuart’s twang-less vocals, coupled with the album’s energy, give a contemporary edge to his take on tradition. He’s Manuel and Nudie suits, but his hairstyle is all modern–gelled and spiked.

Stuart’s band, The Fabulous Superlatives, and guest performers like steel player-extraordinaire Ralph Mooney, add authentic seasoning throughout, helping to make the album work as a whole, durable quilt, as opposed to mismatched swatches of fabric loosely stitched together. The broader statement made by the master of vintage sound is, “honor thy roots music.”

Of the 14 tracks, clearly more than half are stand-out confections. A cover of the classic, “Country Boy Rock & Roll” features priceless, high-speed picking by both Stuart and Kenny Vaughn. “Hummingbyrd” is an original Stuart instrumental tribute to guitarist Clarence White, where he performs on White’s own B-Bender guitar. The nearly acoustic “Hard Working Man” is underscored by a most topical lyric: “What will become of the working man/With honest sweat on his brow/Is the nation that raised him to build it/Gonna turn its back on him now.”

All the ballads are co-written by Stuart with wife Connie Smith, who thankfully joins him in the duet, “I Run to You,” produced with a string arrangement and a sweet, music-box guitar outro. A Red Sovine-style original recitation song by Stuart, “Porter Wagoner’s Grave,” is a piece of theatre, and songs like “Little Heartbreaker” glisten with Mooney’s silvery, steel guitar stylings.

A starkly, stunning piece is “Hangman.” There’s no fancy guitar work or shimmer of rhinestone glitz; it’s simply a restrained delivery and production, allowing Stuart’s vocal to have the spotlight, and telling the story of a prison executioner’s tortured soul. The fact that it’s co-written with Johnny Cash, and is the last song ever written by the Man in Black, who died four days later, just adds to the solemn importance of the piece. This co-write meeting was the last time Stuart saw his one-time father-in-law and friend. And he sings the lyric with the dignity of a last performance: “I killed another man today/It’s hard to believe/Well I lost count at thirty–and I’ve grown too numb to grieve/The bottle helps me cope when I lay down at night/And when the dope rolls through my veins it all fades out of sight.”

It’s conceivable that Stuart recorded a bunch more, and had a hard time culling the pack. Determined to have a little bit of everything in an album, he’s got it covered, from Bakersfield to the Delta, from classic covers to newly-penned material, from iconic themes about trains and prison to blue collar workers. One less ballad with the lyric phrase “hard to bear” could have been managed; but being the musicologist that he is, he strives to put in one record an honest slice of his own traditional country for the annals of American music history–and he delivers. [4-1/2 out of 5 stars]

By Janet Goodman

American Profile

By Neil Pond.

American Songwriter

As the most devoted curator of the institution of country music – writing books, hosting a weekly television show, collecting memorabilia — Marty Stuart has dedicated his life to the preservation of the music he has spent his life playing. Given his standing, Stuart is one of the few musicians entrusted with the keys to Nashville’s famed RCA Studio B, the legendary room that is operated as a tourist attraction by the Country Music Hall of Fame where Stuart first recorded with Lester Flatt as a 13-year-old. Not surprisingly, Stuart has used that opportunity to commune with the ghosts who hang around the mixing board.

Inspired in part by Stuart’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina, Ghost Train is an album spread across a variety of locales and over a rowdy cast of down-and-out drunks, heartbroken lovers, and lonely ex-cons that are torn from the canon of great country archetypes. And while playing spot-the-reference is an entertaining exercise, it only tells half the story. Sure, it’s hard not to hear Charlie and Ira Louvin harmonizing behind Stuart on the hymn-like “Drifting Apart” or catch echoes of Don Rich and Clarence White in the flurry of riffs fired off between Stuart and Kenny Vaughan on the spirited “Hummingbird.” But few artists can sew together these pieces as seamlessly as Stuart and his impeccably tight Fabulous Superlatives, and the album is as much a tribute to their mastery of the last 50 years of country music as it is a meticulous reanimation of another era.

Split between heartbroken ballads, traditional cuts, and twanged-out rockers, Stuart’s sixteenth studio release is a departure from his recent spate of theme-centered albums, though he remains, first and foremost, a craftsman. Opening cut “Branded” is the brand of hillbilly rock that earned Stuart his name as a solo artist, and his cover of Warner Mack’s classic “Bridge Washed Out” and Don Reno’s “Country Boy Rock & Roll” are similarly run through the glitterbilly machine. If Stuart can lay claim to a signature sound, this is it, and he and the Superlatives reserve their most vivid showmanship for these moments.

Just as impressive is Stuart’s soft touch with “A World Without You,” a bleary-eyed ballad co-written with Connie Smith, and “I Run to You,” a string-touched ode to devotion and commitment where Stuart and Smith’s voices blend beautifully on a sweetly sighing chorus. Similarly moving is “Porter Wagoner’s Grave,” a surreal spoken word tribute to the song’s titular character in both style and content, with Wagoner sent back to earth by God to give a conflicted man the courage to go back to his wife. And while the album clearly favors timelessness over timeliness, Stuart captures the current zeitgeist with “Hard Working Man,” voicing the frustrations of those who lost their livelihoods as their jobs went overseas. Like Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” or John Rich’s “Shuttin’ Detroit Down,” it’s a simple and straightforward anthem, one that is disarming in its everyman immediacy and potent in its threadbare arrangement.

Best of all is “Hangman,” a song written with Johnny Cash only four days before the legend passed away that brings to life a haunted executioner as he tries to shake off the memories of all of the men he led to the gallows. With little more than an acoustic guitar and a darkly enveloping atmosphere hanging over Stuart’s rich baritone, it’s a track that would have fit perfectly on any of Cash’s American Recordings albums, and it’s the sober centerpiece of an album that walks a balance between joy and despair.

Ultimately, Ghost Train doesn’t quite measure up to the most memorable albums in Stuart’s catalog, as it lacks the overriding conceptual pull and stylistic unity of his greatest works. That said, it’s a thoroughly listenable and endlessly replay-able affair, a snapshot of where Stuart is as a performer and proprietor of traditional country music in 2010. He’s not quite a museum piece yet, but albums like Ghost Train prove that Marty Stuart has earned the right to stand beside his heroes. [3-1/2 out of 4 stars]

By Matt Fink

American Twang

In the press release sent out with the advance copies of Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, the venerable Marty Stuart says, “I found traditional country music to be on the verge of extinction. It’s too precious to let slip away. I wanted to attempt to write a new chapter.”

Stuart is right that it’s too precious to let slip away, but immensely wrong in claiming that it’s on the verge of extinction—and anointing himself as its savior is a bit presumptuous when there are, in fact, legions of talented artists (in Nashville, in Austin and all over the world) working to keeping the various (and numerous) strands of traditional country music alive.

“New chapters” are written every day by artists like Dale Watson, Miss Leslie and Brennen Leigh (just to name a few), so Ghost Train is no salvation record—just one cog in gear that’s already turning, and one more spoke in a wheel that keeps rolling along.

Of course, Stuart is in typically fine technical form here. One of country music’s most talented and ambitious artists—as well as one of the genre’s preeminent historians—he demonstrates a deep dedication to this project’s mission by treating these 14 classic-sounding songs with due reverence, while performing them with expected deftness and masterful precision.

And when it comes to production, Ghost Train (Engineered by Mick Conley, who also worked on Kathy Mattea’s Coal), possesses a crispness that you just won’t find on the underfunded records put out by many of traditional country’s most noteworthy purveyors—most of whom have tiny recording budgets and limited access to studio space and equipment.

Certainly, if traditional country music needed saving, Stuart wouldn’t be the wrong man to turn to. His grasp on the collection of styles he presents here as “traditional country” is firm; had album opener “Branded” been released 35 years ago, it might well have been remembered today as one of the “outlaw” era’s finest, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more precise example of the country recitation than “Porter Wagoner’s Grave.”

“Branded” was written by Stuart, but it sounds like it was clipped from the Waylon Jennings songbook. Ultimately, that’s emblematic of a weakness found throughout Ghost Train. As well as Stuart performs each of these tracks, they often sound more like very specific attempts to recreate a certain type of song than they sound like outstanding country songs in and of themselves. Indeed, these songs often sound like the ghosts of songs before, not new creations with spirits and souls of their own.

The album features a train song, a spiritual talker, a patriotic ode to “the working man” and a mournful heartbreak ballad, among other canonical themes, but each of these is more notable for the statement it makes about a particular slice of country music history than as a new piece of music.

That fact leaves Stuart often sounding like the late man to the party. Despite his stellar technical execution, he never really takes full ownership of these songs. “Branded” leaves us wishing we could hear Jennings or Haggard sing it, while all we can hear in “Hangman” is the songwriting voice of Johnny Cash.

Stuart co-wrote “Hangman” with Cash just four days before the legendary singer died, and it’s easily the highlight of Ghost Train. The story of a hangman (executioner) who can’t remember the number of men he’s put to death (and who uses alcohol and “dope” to numb the pain and guilt of doing so) the song is more than a notch above the rest of the album’s material. Cash’s influence is palpable in the clear story, engaging character and deeply resonant hook.

Those elements are largely missing elsewhere on the album. Perhaps lost in matters of style and process, Stuart’s songwriting on Ghost Train fails to provide much that’s especially memorable or engaging. And clocking in at nearly 45 minutes, it begins to bore around the halfway point.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the halfway point is “Hangman,” which leaves everything after sounding elementary by comparison.

One thing that is never boring about Ghost Train is the incredible steel guitar work featured throughout the album. Performed, at various points, by an all-star cast of Ralph Mooney, Gary Carter, Tommy White, Robby Turner, Kayton Roberts and Fred Newell, the depth and quality of steel here is second to none.

Ghost Train isn’t likely to be the album that single-handedly revives mainstream interest in classic country music styles and themes, but it is an enjoyable addition to the absolutely not-extinct line of modern, but traditional-sounding country records—one that sounds better than most, though it contains only a couple of truly outstanding songs. [3-1/2 stars]

By Jim Malec

Awaiting The Flood

Recorded at the legendary RCA Studio B in Nashville where, at the tender age of 13, he played mandolin and recorded with Lester Flatt, Ghost Train is Stuart’s return to hard-hitting country music. Far from a sentimental look back or a retro-country album, this is a modern-day icon adding to an already impressive musical structure atop the foundation of past masters.

Stuart is well known as a walking encyclopedia of country music’s history, and on Ghost Train he displays his supreme talent in all styles, and his love for this music.

There’s the honky tonk twang of “Little Heartbreaker (The Likes of You)” co-written with the amazing and legendary pedal steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, and electric guitar virtuosity on the instrumental “Hummingbyrd” (Stuart’s guitar was once owned by former Byrd Charlie White), a whipsmart bluegrass mandolin on “Mississippi Railroad Blues” and a heartfelt duet with his wife Connie Smith on “I Run To You.”

Other gems are the Ray Price classic “Crazy Arms” (also co-written by Mooney, who struts his pedal steel skills), “Porter Wagoner’s Grave” (he and the late Wagon Master were close friends), and “Hangman”, which Stuart wrote with Johnny Cash just four days before Cash died.

“I’m always on the prowl for the kinds of recordings that can inspire and potentially make a difference,” Stuart says. “What inspires me now, is traditional country music. It’s the music I most cherish, the culture in which I was raised. It’s the bedrock upon which the empire of country music is built, the empowering force that provides this genre with lasting credibility. It’s beyond trends and it’s timeless. With all that being said, I found traditional country music to be on the verge of extinction. It’s too precious to let slip away. I wanted to attempt to write a new chapter.”

Marty Stuart is just the man to write this new chapter. He penned over four pages in the CD’s liner notes about his experience on a dark and deserted train depot near his boyhood home in Philadelphia, Mississippi back in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast just to the south. His account of seeing his life flash before his eyes will have the hair standing up on the back of your neck. “Just like postcards from the depths of my soul: love, regret, whiskey, cheating, pills, salvation, redemption, divorce, failure, success, rhinestone suits, Cadillacs, Fender telecasters, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, the Grand Ole Opry, Folsom Prison, hearrtaches, Connie Smith, Ira Hayes, My Mama, my Daddy, my sister, the Staple Singers, Jesus Christ, the summer of 1964 . . . cotton and squash on top of Johnny Cash’s casket, Merle Haggard’s phone number . . . .”

BBC

If there were a few more like Marty Stuart making records in Nashville at the moment, country music wouldn’t be in the stagnant state it’s in.

Marty started out as a teenager playing mandolin with a pillar of the bluegrass establishment, Lester Flatt, and went on to serve as the sideman of choice for those who wanted someone who could play but also had a bit of spice; his rock’n’roll tendencies are never far below the surface. His 1992 single "High on a Mountain Top" is a sublime example of how he could take a classic and pull it right up to date without compromising any of the song’s best qualities.

He has an impeccable CV then, a complete understanding of what makes good country music sound right, and just enough rebelliousness to keep it fresh. He set out to make this album saying: “I found traditional country music to be on the verge of extinction… I wanted to attempt to write a new chapter.”

It’s a pretty good attempt. He recorded in RCA Studio B (usually prefaced with “The Legendary”). It was there that the great recordings of Chet Atkins, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and so many others were made. And Marty’s record sounds like a Studio B recording; no-nonsense backing, heavy on the steel guitar, songs of prisons, lost love, the life of the hangman (written with former father-in-law Johnny Cash, days before he died), it evokes beautifully the feel of straight down the line, late-50s honky tonk country.

Slight problem: there are a lot of Marty’s songs here. They’re okay, but a few covers wouldn’t have gone amiss. He has the spirit right, but these are not going to be classics. He doesn’t have the voice of George Jones, the instrumental mastery of Vince Gill or the songwriting skill of Willie Nelson, but he makes a good fist of it, and is – and has always been – sincere in his desire for the values of traditional country music to be maintained.

Despite a number of breaks, critical acclaim and major record contracts, it’s never quite clicked for Marty. Ghost Train is unlikely to change this, but should be celebrated for what it is: a very accomplished album of its kind.

By Nick Barraclough

Bluegrass Notes (Blog)

“What inspires me now is traditional country music,” Marty Stuart says in a news release for his new Ghost Train album. “It’s the music I most cherish.” That said, don’t expect to find any bluegrass on here.

Sure, Stuart got his start as a 13-year-old mandolin player with Lester Flatt in 1972. And he’s made a few bluegrass albums through the years since Flatt’s death in 1979. But this isn’t one of them.

The songs feature drums, electric guitars, steel guitars, pianos, violins, cellos and violas — not banjos, fiddles and mandolins.

Still, bluegrass these days is leaning closer to traditional country music than modern country music does.

And the more liberal (in terms of music) bluegrass fans will probably enjoy Ghost Train.

The strangest — and maybe the best — song on the album is Stuart’s “Porter Wagoner’s Grave,” a recitation about a homeless man whose life is turned around when he meets the ghost of Porter Wagoner while sleeping on Wagoner’s grave.

Stuart, incidentally, wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 14 tracks, including “Hangman,” a song he co-wrote with Johnny Cash, four days before Cash’s death. The song tells of an executioner who uses drugs and liquor to dull the pain of killing people.

The album features a duet with Stuart’s wife, Connie Smith, on the ballad, “I Run To You,” which they co-wrote. The two also co-wrote the ballad, “A World Without You.”

There are three instrumentals — Stuart’s “Hummingbyrd” and “Mississippi Railroad Blues” and Ralph E. Mooney and Charles P. Seals’ “Crazy Arms.” Mooney plays steel guitar on the tune as well as on several of the other tracks.

“Hard Working Man” is a song about the Great Recession, when jobs are taken away from Americans and shipped overseas.

“Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten” finds a man at the depot where trains no longer stop. He’s broke, his woman is gone and he’s ready to ride a ghost train.

It’s the kind of album Nashville should be making more of, but isn’t.

By Keith Lawrence

Country Universe

As a virtuosic instrumentalist in both mandolin and guitar, Marty Stuart was one of the very talented artists whose peak occurred in the early nineties. While his chart success wasn’t as numerically present as many of his counterparts, his reverence for country music and its history has turned him into one of the most respected nineties country artists today.

Stuart has explored several facets of country music over the years, including rockabilly, traditional, and honky tonk. Now, he is paying his respects to traditional country music with his latest release called Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, which will be released on August 24th. Along with 12 other quality tracks, the album includes a haunting song that Stuart wrote with Johnny Cash just four days before Cash’s death. From the perspective of a man who hanged people for a living, the song is called “Hangmen.” The other standout song is called “Porter Wagoner’s Grave.”

As one of the summer releases that I’ve most been looking forward to, I am pleased to report that the album does not disappoint.

By Leeann Ward

Country Weekly

Marty Stuart’s latest offering is steeped in long-established country traditions and sounds. “Country Boy Rock & Roll” mixes a rhythm reminiscent of a classic Johnny Cash tune with early-’90s country guitar licks. “A World Without You,” with its straight-ahead bass line, recalls George Jones’ “A Picture of Me (Without You).” There is a lush duet between Marty and wife Connie Smith, “I Run to You” (not to be confused with Lady Antebellum’s hit of the same name), a cover of Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms” and a tribute to country stalwart Jimmie Rodgers on “Mississippi Railroad Blues.” The woeful “Drifting Apart” is a John Conlee-style ballad, gracefully punctuated by weeping steel guitar and earnest background vocals. The album’s most haunting songs are also the most enchanting, including the spiritual “Porter Wagoner’s Grave” and “Hangman,” which Marty wrote with Johnny Cash only days before the iconic singer’s death. Ghost Train is a captivating achievement. [4-1/2 stars]

By Jessica Phillips

The Dallas Morning News

Respected traditionalist recorded this haunting set of country gems at Nashville's famed RCA studio.

By Mario Tarradell

The Globe and Mail

The albums opens with “Branded, ” a song that calls to mind Buck Owen's“The Streets of Bakersfield,” both musically and lyrically. Stuart sings about “trying to outrun a bad story that everyone seems to know.” Country Boy Rock and Roll reads like the story of Marty Stuarts life, with lyrics that remind listeners of his early work with Travis Tritt and a fiddle breakdown that plays like this old days with Flatt and Scruggs. The bluegrass on the album is spare, but wonderful when it appears. Hummingbyrd is a sprightly instrumental track which serves as a bluegrass break from the Bakersfield and 60's country crooning. Stuart also closes his album out with another bluegrass interlude. Ralph Mooney, legendary steel guitar player, plays throughout the album, and Stuart gives him a star turn on the solo “Crazy Arms.” He also takes the time to do a duet with his wife, Connie Smith, on the beautiful “I Run To You.” “There's a woman down the street named Rosalie McFall, she don't ask me any questions when I come to call,” Stuart sings on “Hangman,” a dark ballad about the title character, in much the same vein as Johnny Cash. Stuart lets this album flow like a musical map of all the styles he has learned and seen.

More than anything else, however, Stuart seems to understand the themes that country music used to deal with, the ones that country music does not get right today. Country music used to really understand the end of a marriage, and covered it with a heartbreaking bluntness which was far more compelling than the melodrama of today. “Our home is like a prison where we're both serving time,” Stuart croons in the George Jones homage “Driftin' Apart.” “A World Without You” is an almost Eddy Arnold styled ballad, which also serves as a reminder of just how sumptuous Stuart's voice can be when he really unleashes it and stretches it out to its most heartbreaking edge. Likewise, today humor in country music tends to revolve either around man-bashing or frat boys trying to prove how country they are. Country in the 1960's was a far more humorous place, with writers like Roger Miller unabashedly penning songs like “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose.” “Bridge Washed Out” is a reminder of comedy country unencumbered by defensive macho posturing. But perhaps the one aspect of country music most missed by traditional country fans is the poor. Once upon a time country music was the music of the working class, of the broke and the broke down blue collared employees being shunted aside in the name of progress. “Here's a question that needs a straight answer, what will become of the working man,” he asks in “Hard Working Man,” a song that could be linked back to Merle Haggard's “I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver,” but which has more wide reaching roots a time when such songs were more about the people than the politics. “Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten,” opens with a riff worthy of Jimmie Rodgers before opening out into a bluesy rocker about a man put under by the economy. And, of course, Porter Wagoner's Grave allows Stuart pay tribute to the criminally under-homaged singer while schooling contemporary singers on how to write an old-man-as-font-of-wisdom song.

Ghost Train is the kind of album that artist like Marty Stuart work their entire lives to create. It is precisely the kind of album that requires an entire lifetime of skill and knowledge to create. However, Marty Stuart is also the only kind of an artist that could create an album like Ghost Train. This sort of an album requires that an artist be enamored of the music, but also album to create new songs that celebrate and advance it. Hopefully this album will inspire more artists of Stuart's talents and experience to create more albums that lionize country music of the 1950's and 60's instead of merely covering it.

By B.W.

The Independent

RCA's Studio B in Nashville was where Marty Stuart made his recording debut, aged 13, playing mandolin in Lester Flatt's band, so it's fitting he should return there for this rootsy traditional country outing, the best country album this year.

It features six pedal-steel guitarists laying down creamy, lachrymose lines and, in the case of the title-track, some neat lonesome-train impressions; and some of the most dazzling fingerpicking you'll hear in a long time on "Country Boy Rock & Roll," a dizzying Telecaster twangfest balanced by high-proof tear-jerkers like the marvellous "Drifting Apart." Stuart's outlaw status is affirmed in "Branded," while his friendship with Johnny Cash furnished the powerful "Hangman," an expression of executioner's misery co-written four days before Big John died. [4 out of 5 stars]

By Andy Gill

Jim's Country Music Reviews

"Hard Working Man" (Marty Stuart) is a slow country ballad that talk about the plight of the hard working man. Excellent vocals and great old-timey pedal steel by Ralph Mooney. Good solo by Vaughan. BTW, the rest of the Superlatives are Harry Stinson on drums and Paul Martin on Bass. Four different pedal steel players are used, Ralph Mooney, Kayton Roberts, Gary Carter, and Robby Turner. There are some sparse strings in the background. Ralph Mooney plays a solo of his "Crazy Arms" on pedal steel after being asked by Marty. He really nails the song. "Porter Wagoners Grave" is a classic country talk song that Stuart does a very emotive job at performing, while the band plays quietly in the background. If Marty Stuart is not one of the fine voices of country today, no one is, this song never fails to touch me. The he goes into a melody after the talk part. This is a very touching song.

After this song the band goes into a little Bakersfield sound, 'Little Heartbreaker," which has some great lyrics, raw guitar pickin', this is good, picture Dwight Yoacum with someone else singing and Vaughn goes into some more great guitar work, minced with pedal steel.

For an ending, they go acoustic and play a bluegrass jam with mandolin, mostly ripping off thru a melody. As the disc starts with a very country rocker "Branded" which has lots of electc guitar, some great country hooks, and more pedal steel. This band rocks, sounding a bit like Radney Foster. My favorite song is "Country Boy Rock and Roll." Kenny Vaughan plays some of the hottest guitar playing that I ever heard, He plays right along with the melody of the song and goes plain nuts at end. (Whew) The cover is retro back and white of a train comin' a you. This is Marty at his best.

By Jim Moulton

The Lincoln Journal Star

Recorded in the Nashville studio where Elvis Presley and many others crafted hits, Marty Stuart's Ghost Train is the best country record of 2010 so far, a combination of songs and styles from a veteran who's been playing with legends since he was a teenager and reflects the timeless traditional sounds in the music.

Some highlights of a great album: "Country Boy Rock ‘n' Roll," his venture into his hillbilly rock ‘n' roll with Kenny Vaughan tearing up the guitar; heartbroke ballad "Drifting Apart"; the classic country duet "I Run To You" with Connie Smith; the Merle Haggard update "Hard Working Man," a prison song from the point-of-view a "Hangman"; and a spoken-word trip to "Porter Wagoner's Grave."

Keeping with tradition, there are three instrumentals on the album, including a great, if short version of "Crazy Arms" with the legendary Ralph Mooney on pedal steel.

Music doesn't get more country than the songs on Ghost Train and country doesn't get any better than this. Grade: A

By L. Kent Wolgamott

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Since making his professional debut as a 13-year-old mandolin whiz with Flatt & Scruggs, Marty Stuart has been an indelible link between traditional and modern country music. A strong protector of the genre's heritage, he's preserved one of the largest collections of country music artifacts, and his photography has captured timeless images of the legends.

With Ghost Train, Stuart has crafted a collection of songs that doesn't merely pay homage to his country forebears, but would fit easily in the catalogs of Haggard, Owens, Cash and Jones.

Recording the album in RCA's Studio B in Nashville - home to the biggest hits from Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Charley Pride and others - Stuart and his instrumentally talented Superlatives are joined by steel guitarist Ralph Mooney as they effortlessly channel passion, heartbreak, hardships and joy.

Originals such as the bounding "Branded," the mournful "Drifting Apart" and the Johnny Cash co-written "Hangman" (written four days before his death) drip with authenticity. The album's covers, including Don Reno's "Country Boy Rock & Roll" and an instrumental take on Mooney's "Crazy Arms," are vibrant expressions of a time gone by, recorded in an era that could benefit from a bit more looking back.

By Erik Ernst

Napster

Marty Stuart keeps fighting the good fight. His latest record, Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, champions classic country sounds and does so with impeccable authority. Stuart even went so far as to record the new album in the famous RCA Studio B in Nashville. Chet Atkins advocated for the studio's construction in 1957 to facilitate his monumental Nashville Sound productions, and Stuart first recorded in it in 1972 as part of a Lester Flatt session. Today, Stuart's mission and passion is making sure that traditional country sounds are not forgotten. On Ghost Train, he succeeds at doing that amazingly well. With his ace backing band The Fabulous Superlatives (seriously, these guys are as good as anyone playing in Nashville today), he has crafted an ode to vintage sounds that resonates and crackles with a touch of modern energy. Much like Carryin' On, the Dale Watson record that we wrote about earlier this week, Ghost Train is a tremendous celebration of classic country and makes for a great listen.

National Public Radio (NPR)

Like countless performers before him, Marty Stuart likes to portray himself as hunted, haunted, misunderstood — a rebel on the lam. It's a familiar story, whether it's coming from the blues, honky-tonk, or hip-hop. The trick is to make that story sound fresh. Stuart does in the ringing guitars and high-lonesome holler in his voice on a song on his new album Ghost Train called "Branded." Whether he intends it or not, "Branded" is also something of a pun: This new collection is Stuart's proclamation that, while he can't help but become a consumer brand, his branding is that of the outsider. All of this would be hopelessly hokey if the music didn't bolster his line of patter.

On "Drifting Apart," Marty Stuart howls about a broken marriage in what amounts to an homage to the kind of steel-guitar super-hits George Jones and Buck Owens made decades ago. Stuart wrote the song and produced it himself. The steel guitar is played by Ralph Mooney, the man credited with nothing less than inventing the so-called "Bakersfield Sound" on hits with Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart, among many others. Stuart is a fluid guitar player himself, who played bluegrass mandolin behind Lester Flatt when Stuart was 13 years old. But he never gets bogged down in fussy arrangements or mere nostalgia.

Marty Stuart's duet partner on the vibrant new song "I Run To You" is his wife, Connie Smith, a great country singer, starting with her indelible 1964 hit "Once A Day." Sometimes it seems as though Marty Stuart has built a life around him that allows him to live in a kind of perpetual country-music time-machine. He curates exhibits of music memorabilia and photography, and doing restoration work on legends such as Porter Wagoner, for whom Stuart produced a lively 2007 album, shortly before Wagoner's death at age 80. Stuart has a song on Ghost Train called "Porter Wagoner's Grave" that's at once eloquent and maudlin in a long tradition of country death songs.

All is not gloom and grave-dust, however, as the song "Little Heartbreaker" demonstrates. The longer you ride in Marty Stuart's Ghost Train, the more its speed and energy hits you like the wind in your face. In the liner notes to this new album, Marty Stuart says that he felt it was time to, "write some songs and play some hard-hitting country music." Most of the time, Ghost Train hits hard, dead center in the sweet spot between old and new, until you can't tell the difference.

By James Minchin, III

No Depression

There are certain artists whom I feel most music fans should have at least a passing familiarity with: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, the Ramones, etc. The list is debatable, of course, and I'm sure hard rock and heavy metal fans would want to add Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath just as fans of hip-hop would want to include the likes of N.W.A. (in fact, fans of hip-hop would probably dismiss most of the list entirely; sadly, most of them have very narrow musical tastes and even narrower minds). Regardless, I doubt if anybody would include Marty Stuart or John Mellencamp on that list. Both are great, but they aren't exactly icons on the level of the others I mentioned. Yet both of them will release albums this month that I believe should be required listening for every young musician. Not just because the music is great, but because of the way they were recorded.

Today's music industry is undoubtedly in decline. Blame the rise of internet piracy and the death of physical music formats if you want, but when it comes down to it the fault lies with the music itself. New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys were here long before Napster and bitTorrents.For years now vocal mistakes have been Auto-Tuned out of the finished product, missed notes were overdubbed, and basically the entire thing sounded far too polished. This is a horrible thing for music and is the real reason why it is dying. I don't recall the exact quote nor the place where I read it (I'm guessing one of Peter Guralnick's books on Elvis or Colin Escott's history of Sun Records), but legendary producer Sam Phillips once said something along the lines of this: the greatest performances are rarely flawless in a technical sense and too many studio gimmicks almost always ruin a record. That is why young musicians need to hear the upcoming albums by Mellencamp and Stuart: to realize that is not about modern-day multi-million dollar recording studios with perfect acoustics (yes, even some indie artists are guilty of this), that its not about top-of-the-line vocal tuners that can make even Bob Dylan sound like Caruso, and that it's not about writing to the lowest common denominator in hopes of having a hit record that will be forgotten about in a year. These two albums reveal that its about passion and a good sense of history, but mainly passion.

I've already reviewed the Mellencamp disc (read my review of it HERE), so now it's time to take a swing at Marty Stuart's Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, which will be released on August 24th. Like Sun Studios, where Mellencamp recorded the bulk of his album, RCA's Studio B is now a museum and Stuart had to obtain special permission from the Country Music Hall of Fame in order to record there. In the '50s, '60s, and '70s, it was the studio frequented by country's biggest stars as well as Elvis Presley who recorded roughly 50% of his output there. It goes without saying that the studio has seen its share of great music and Stuart, who made his recording debut in Studio B in 1972 as the 12-year-old mandolin player in Lester Flatt's band, makes great music live there once again.

The album opens with "Branded" which could very well be a homage to Merle Haggard's "Branded Man". Of course, it's not as great; for starters, Haggard lived it and secondly, Marty Stuart is no Merle Haggard as I'm sure even he would point out. With its shortcomings duly mentioned, I still must say that it is an excellent track that adds just the right touch of rock to its '70s country feel.

"Country Boy Rock & Roll," a cover of an old Reno & Smiley tune, follows and, given its past as a bluegrass number, it should come as no surprise that this one makes a fine showcase for Marty's band, the Superlatives.

"Drifting Apart" is the sort of honky-tonk ballad that George Jones specializes in. As you can surmise from the title, the melancholy tune tells of a relationship on the edge of falling apart. A real highlight here, and for that matter the entire album, is the pedal steel playing of Ralph Mooney. This track is a highlight of the album and a bittersweet reminder of what Nashville was once capable of.

"The Bridge Washed Out" is another cover, this one of a 1965 hit by Warner Mack that went to the top of the country charts. Marty and the Superlatives give the tale of a wedding day gone awry a country-rock feel with some elements of classic Waylon Jennings thrown in for good measure. As with the previous cover, this number is ample proof that even with Stuart's considerable skill as a vocalist, musician, and songwriter, his real strength is as a performer.

"A World Without You" is another classic-styled ballad, this one co-written by Stuart's wife, Connie Smith. Mooney's crying steel guitar is again a major highlight here as is Stuart's vocal delivery which speaks to his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the history of country music that has allowed him to find his own style in the modern era while staying true to tradition. I must also mention the Jordanaire-esque background vocals that I imagine Elvis would have greatly approved of.

"Hummingbyrd" is another showcase for the Superlatives and especially Marty's electric guitar playing. This time, as the title implies, that guitar is one once owned by Clarence White. This instrumental would make a great soundtrack to a high-speed drive down the highway and it does indeed sound reminiscent of the Byrds.

"I killed another man today," Stuart solemnly declares at the opening of "Hangman," my favorite track here. The song has late-period Johnny Cash written all over it and with good reason. Stuart, the former husband of Cindy Cash, spent five years as a multi-instrumentalist in Cash's band and was also his next-door neighbor at the time of his death. Marty wrote the first verse after a visit to Folsom Prison and after sharing it with Cash, the two completed the song together. Four days later, country music lost perhaps its greatest artist but had it not one could easily imagine this song being a highlight of American V. "Who killed who I've asked myself time and time again," Stuart sings above the stark, bare-bones arrangement, "God have mercy on the soul of this hangman."

"Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten" also has a feel reminiscent of Johnny Cash and also Jimmie Rodgers. The biggest influence by far, though is the Elvis classic "Mystery Train." But unlike the classic train songs of those legends, this one reflects our own modern society where "the trains don't run no more." There's a supernatural element to this one that I really love and the band is really hot here on the tale of a ghost train that carries "gamblers, thugs, and thieves, and the likes of me."

"Hard Working Man" is another stark, stripped-down acoustic tune and the wonderful lyrics speak for themselves, so I'll just let them: "What will become of the working man with honest sweat on his brow?/Will the nation that raised him to build it gonna turn its back on him now?/Take away his pride and dignity, give his job to some foreign land/Here's a question that needs a straight answer: what will become of the hard working man?". Stuart is right that the question needs a straight answer and if you have that answer feel free to give it in the comments or better yet in a letter to your Congressman. I have no idea who Marty Stuart voted for and I really don't care. This song transcends politics; it's about a way of life and Stuart's sincere delivery ensures us that he is not on the side of the corporate-run Republicans or the corporate-run Democrats. He is on America's side; he is on our side.

"I Run to You" is a duet with Connie Smith that is reminiscent of Loretta and Conway or George and Tammy. It is a near-perfect love song and I still can't figure out whose idea it was to put strings on a hillbilly record, but it really works in this case. Thank you Ray Price.

Speaking of Ray Price, when I first saw that "Crazy Arms" was on the track list, I cringed a little. It's not that I don't think Stuart could do a capable job on the classic, it's just that the versions by Price and Jerry Lee Lewis are really all that we need. Luckily this is an instrumental version with the most prominent instrument being the pedal steel of Ralph Mooney, who wrote the song.

"Porter Wagoner's Grave" is a recitation with a strong Christian theme. You don't hear many recitations these days; not in mainstream Nashville, nor in alt-country, mainly because few can pull them off. Yet Stuart does a good job and the song makes for a great tribute to Stuart's late friend and is an intriguing tale of how "On a dark stormy night, a lost soul was saved/Brought into the fold on Porter Wagoner's grave."

"Little Heartbreaker," co-written by Stuart and Mooney, livens things up with its honky-tonk country-rock. This is the kind of song that Stuart became famous for early on in his solo career and he still performs this type of material as well as anybody in the business.

"Mississippi Railroad Blues" closes the album by finding Stuart going full circle. The song is the album's second instrumental, this time performed solo by Stuart on the mandolin. The melodic piece is performed at a very fast pace and proves that he hasn't lost his touch on the instrument that first brought him to prominence.

In conclusion, this is what we've come to expect from Marty Stuart: a solid collection of country tunes with a dash of rootsy rock and roll here and there. This time there is more of a focus on history than ever before and we get all of the classic country archetypes: the train songs, the prison songs, a duet, a few sad ballads, a gospel number, and even a few instrumentals. Marty Stuart is keeping the spirit of country music alive within Nashville. It's a fight he can't win, but he'll go to his grave trying and as I stated at the beginning, all young musicians can take a lesson or two from this album.

By Adam Sheets

Roughstock

Marty Stuart is a throw back to a different era, an era when a career in country music encompassed your entire life and the entirety of country music. He is one of a group of men from the late 80's and early 90's who became famous playing with others before they became famous for their own music. At age 12, Stuart was playing in a bluegrass band; at age 14 he was touring with Flatt and Scruggs. By the time he embarked on his solo career at age 30, Stuart had played with artists ranging from Doc Watson to Johnny Cash. This wealth of experience left him with a profound knowledge of and love for country music. Ghost Train is a tribute to the music Stuart knows and loves.

The albums opens with “Branded, ” a song that calls to mind Buck Owen's“The Streets of Bakersfield,” both musically and lyrically. Stuart sings about “trying to outrun a bad story that everyone seems to know.” Country Boy Rock and Roll reads like the story of Marty Stuarts life, with lyrics that remind listeners of his early work with Travis Tritt and a fiddle breakdown that plays like this old days with Flatt and Scruggs. The bluegrass on the album is spare, but wonderful when it appears. Hummingbyrd is a sprightly instrumental track which serves as a bluegrass break from the Bakersfield and 60's country crooning. Stuart also closes his album out with another bluegrass interlude. Ralph Mooney, legendary steel guitar player, plays throughout the album, and Stuart gives him a star turn on the solo “Crazy Arms.” He also takes the time to do a duet with his wife, Connie Smith, on the beautiful “I Run To You.” “There's a woman down the street named Rosalie McFall, she don't ask me any questions when I come to call,” Stuart sings on “Hangman,” a dark ballad about the title character, in much the same vein as Johnny Cash. Stuart lets this album flow like a musical map of all the styles he has learned and seen.

More than anything else, however, Stuart seems to understand the themes that country music used to deal with, the ones that country music does not get right today. Country music used to really understand the end of a marriage, and covered it with a heartbreaking bluntness which was far more compelling than the melodrama of today. “Our home is like a prison where we're both serving time,” Stuart croons in the George Jones homage “Driftin' Apart.” “A World Without You” is an almost Eddy Arnold styled ballad, which also serves as a reminder of just how sumptuous Stuart's voice can be when he really unleashes it and stretches it out to its most heartbreaking edge. Likewise, today humor in country music tends to revolve either around man-bashing or frat boys trying to prove how country they are. Country in the 1960's was a far more humorous place, with writers like Roger Miller unabashedly penning songs like “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose.” “Bridge Washed Out” is a reminder of comedy country unencumbered by defensive macho posturing. But perhaps the one aspect of country music most missed by traditional country fans is the poor. Once upon a time country music was the music of the working class, of the broke and the broke down blue collared employees being shunted aside in the name of progress. “Here's a question that needs a straight answer, what will become of the working man,” he asks in “Hard Working Man,” a song that could be linked back to Merle Haggard's “I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver,” but which has more wide reaching roots a time when such songs were more about the people than the politics. “Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten,” opens with a riff worthy of Jimmie Rodgers before opening out into a bluesy rocker about a man put under by the economy. And, of course, Porter Wagoner's Grave allows Stuart pay tribute to the criminally under-homaged singer while schooling contemporary singers on how to write an old-man-as-font-of-wisdom song.

Ghost Train is the kind of album that artist like Marty Stuart work their entire lives to create. It is precisely the kind of album that requires an entire lifetime of skill and knowledge to create. However, Marty Stuart is also the only kind of an artist that could create an album like Ghost Train. This sort of an album requires that an artist be enamored of the music, but also album to create new songs that celebrate and advance it. Hopefully this album will inspire more artists of Stuart's talents and experience to create more albums that lionize country music of the 1950's and 60's instead of merely covering it.

By Stormy Lewis

Slant Magazine

Though he began his career alongside other neo-traditionalist acts like Dwight Yoakam and Clint Black, Marty Stuart has emerged as one of the most passionate, most capable champions of purely traditional country music over the last decade. The heavy rockabilly influences that made his early recordings so compelling have given way to prominent pedal steels and vintage recording techniques. Stuart's hair, a mullet of truly epic proportions, is just about the only thing that has remained constant over the course of his storied career.

Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, his latest effort, is easily among his most focused, most powerful collections of bedrock country. Kicking off with the punchy "Branded," it's clear that Stuart aims to reaffirm the values and virtues of the style of music he has worked so diligently to preserve. "Well, I'm branded wherever I go/Trying to outrun a bad story everybody seems to know," he shrugs, with a twangy, chicken-plucked guitar figure and insistent drumline backing him. "Country Boy Rock & Roll" draws less heavily from rockabilly than from the Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens, and its breakneck tempo serves as an effective reminder that traditional country, when it's done right, incorporates a healthy dose of hell-raising. Stuart carries that idea through the fast-picking instrumental "Hummingbyrd" and swinging "Ghost Train Four-Oh-Ten."

Over the course of his career, Stuart has proven himself more adept at these kinds of uptempo cuts than at ballads, and that's the case on Ghost Train as well. His performance on "Drifting Apart" is just fine, and he resurrects the "recitation" song style on the stirring "Porter Wagoner's Grave." But when he's joined by his wife, Connie Smith, on "I Run to You," it brings Stuart's limitations into sharp relief. Granted, Smith happens to be the finest singer in the history of the country genre, so that might not be a fair comparison, but it's one that Stuart actively invited. "Hard Working Man," an unbearable bit of persecution and paranoia ("In better times/In Old America/We sang the 'Working Man's Blues' with such pride") that seems tailor-made for Tea Party rallies, is an even more significant misstep in that it pulls focus from the album's more timeless themes.

Though the execution of "Hard Working Man" is sorely lacking, the sentiment behind it is honest. In that way, even the one genuinely poor song on Ghost Track still fits with Stuart's overall intentions for the project. More so than anything else, what is striking about the album is Stuart's unabashed sincerity. He approaches traditional country music with a scholar's curiosity and passion, and he has written and performed the songs on Ghost Train with expert skill. There isn't anything the least bit progressive about the album, but Stuart has undoubtedly succeeded in creating a country record that not only preserves but honors the genre's history. [4 Stars]

By Jonathan Keefe

Sounds Country (Blog)

1. Marty Stuart’s new record Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions, has been referred to as “traditional country” by several media outlets. When a modifier is added to a genre, it often gives too much credit to the offspring. The corrrect way to describe Marty Stuart’s type of music is “country”, in the same way that Hank Williams is not “Hank Senior” — he is just “Hank.” Stuart has been ignoring the urge to pander to country radio for many years now, and in doing so, is making some of his finest music yet.

2. “Branded”, the leadoff track on the record, echoes Stuarts commitment to the core of country music in both lyrics and music. Riding a stomping rhythm that locks into a Waylon-worthy groove, Stuart sings about being known in every town for his less reputable actions. His solo breaks, on Clarence White’s 1954 Telecaster, give the instrument a workout — as if having Kenny Vaughan in his backing band wasn’t enough.

3. The lyrics echo classic songs from Haggard and Cash, singing about the perils of a negative reputation — whether that be an actual prison sentence, a reputation as a heartbreaker, cheater, drinker, or all of the above. Like so many other artists featured on this site, Stuart succeeds with Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions by being himself and keeping it simple. New artists could learn a lot by following his example in staying true to the rich history and heritage of country music.

The River Runs North

Marty Stuart is best when left to his own devices. Since the “no hat” days of the early nineties, Marty has taken control of his records, subsequently producing the masterpiece, The Pilgrim, as well as classics including Country Music and Badlands.

I suspect even those who aren’t fans of true (or traditional) country music can still appreciate that Marty is the “curator” of the legacy.

This album is no exception.

From the opening track, “Branded,” with its sly homage to Merle Haggard, including Roy Nichols-like guitar licks, to a remake of the 1965 Warner Mack hit, “The Bridge Washed Out,” to a lovely duet with wife (and legend) Connie Smith, “I Run To You,” the 1960's country music sound is alive and well, just a bit more bright and shiny.

Standout tracks on this album, in addition to the aforementioned, include, “A World Without You” (my favorite). This track, folks, cannot be mistaken for anything BUT country music in its truest form. Also here is an instrumental version of Ralph Mooney’s “Crazy Arms,” featuring Ralph himself on steel. “Hummingbyrd,” too, is a nice, ringing instrumental. Marty and Ralph collaborated on “Little Heartbreaker,” a bouncy ditty that features some Wynn Stewart-like steel guitar licks.

Not everything works, but the minor nits I have with this CD do nothing to detract from this superior effort by Marty.

Be forewarned: If your idea of country music is dirty dishwater that’s lost most of its foam, you probably won’t like Ghost Train (The Studio B Sessions).

If, on the other hand, you love music, and are able to discern between country music junkies and country music junk, you really can’t go wrong surfing on over to Amazon and clicking the “buy” button. [4 Stars]

By Michelle Anderson

Tuesday Guide

GRAMMY®-winner and American music icon Marty Stuart releases a traditional country album Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions. With his 14th studio album, Stuart steadily continues to lead the charge in preserving the roots, culture and history of traditional country music. “What inspires me now, is traditional country music,” says Stuart. “It’s the music I most cherish, the culture in which I was raised. It’s the bedrock upon which the empire of country music is built, the empowering force that provides this genre with lasting credibility. It’s beyond trends and it’s timeless. With all that being said, I found traditional country music to be on the verge of extinction. It’s too precious to let slip away. I wanted to attempt to write a new chapter.”

The Virginian-Pilot

The album’s title says it all: Marty Stuart is haunted by what has come before. But he has always had one foot in the past and one in the present. That doesn’t change on Ghost Train, his new album due to be released August 24.

The sound is modern and radio ready, but its soul is classic country. It isn’t enough that he co-wrote the grim “Hangman” with ex-father-in-law Johnny Cash mere days before the latter’s death. Or that he taps Ralph Mooney – co-writer of the classic tune “Crazy Arms” – to play throughout the disc and co-author the kickin’ “Little Heartbreaker.” Nor is it unexpected to find wife Connie Smith on a couple of tracks.

Having served as president of the Country Music Foundation and played in Lester Flatts and Johnny Cash’s band, Stuart has a lyrical sensibility that hews close to country’s well-traveled highway of fading railroads, broken loves and the working man. But Stuart’s work is never trite, stilted or self-conscious, problems that taint most modern country music.

He is influenced by the past but not a prisoner of it. Having recorded this disc in one of Nashville’s legendary studios, Stuart has turned out a remarkably delicious slice of country pie.

By Larry Printz

Winnipeg Sun

You can go home again. Stuart's 15th disc -- cut in the famed Nashville studio where he played his first session -- takes him (and us) back to the glory days of C&W. You get plenty of songs about lovin' and hurtin' and death (including Johnny Cash's final co-write), lots of weeping pedal steel and twangy hillbilly boogie, and a mess of chicken-pickin' guitar slingin'. All aboard. [4 Stars]

Download: Country Boy Rock 'n' Roll, Hangman

By Darryl Sterdan

Witchita Falls Times Record News

A staunch defender of country traditionalism, while still plenty capable of burning the strings with the most “progressive” of them, Marty Stuart went back to his roots and settled into Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio B for his new set, Ghost Train (The Studio B Sessions). The results remind us that the music of the American common people isn’t dead under a massive mountain of irrelevant radio fluff after all, that it’s there for anyone who looks for it.

From the opening licks of the Haggard-inspired “Branded,” through the stone country of “Drifting Apart,” to the high-energy chicken-pickin’ exuberance of “Country Boy Rock and Roll,” Stuart turns in what is undoubtedly one of the strongest tradition-heavy country albums this year, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see it high on yearly Top 10 lists all over the country.

“Run to You” (featuring Stuart’s songbird wife, Connie Smith), “Hangman” (with Johnny Cash), “Hard Working Man” and Stuart’s always-amazing mandolin picking on the solo “Mississippi Railroad Blues” round out a perfect reminder of what country music was, and is, supposed to be.

Ghost Train (The Studio B Sessions) definitely deserves its rating.

Rating A

By Don Chance