Marty Stuart’s Country Music Time Machine

Country music heads in Santa Barbara don’t get a lot of twang ops in this old town, which makes the arrival of a genuine country star something to savor. Said genuine item would be Marty Stuart, who brought his more-than-good band — with the double positive moniker The Fabulous Superlatives — to the Lobero Theatre recently. Not surprisingly, a capacity crowd showed up in a Stuart appreciation society, with frequent standing ovations during the show.

In his long, richly rewarding trek over the past forty years, Stuart has moved through various phases and styles, in and out of focus and fidelity to what was happening in Nashville at the time. He has bowed to the gods of traditionalism and the depths of country’s legacy, and, along with his natural gift for storytelling, became a perfect spokesperson and consultant for Ken Burns’s eight-part documentary series, Country Music.

A sideman to the stars, including Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash, before launching his storied solo career, Stuart has honed the art of finding the right cover songs to suit his gift and occasionally scored big radio play with a memorable original, such as his major 1991 hit “Tempted.” He has found tasteful ways to tow the stylistic lines between country, gospel, and shades of rock and roll/rockabilly and, in a surprising move, even jumped into the pool of jangly post-surf and Dick Dale–esque instrumental rock, as on his most recent release, Space Junk.

Not least of all, Stuart happily dresses the part and sports the coif. He and his four-piece band at the Lobero — four sharp-dressed men in their C&W-approved suits by Nudie. Yes, they showed up as rhinestone cowboys, putting on a potent show of country force and finesse in acoustic mode. Suitable sartorial flair is one thing, but to quote the Bo Diddley song they played deep into their 27-song set, “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover,” these guys are, on the music level where it counts, superlative. 

They did their impressive bidding with well-played acoustic guitars (from both lead guitarist Kenny Vaughan and the fine picker Stuart himself), Marty’s mandolin, Chris Scruggs’ (grandson of Earl) upright bass, a snare in Harry Stinson’s drum corner, and vocal harmonies throughout. 

Technology took a back seat this night, right up through their gathering around a single vintage (or faux vintage) fatty microphone, or the moment in the encores when the boys came up stagefront, getting extra downhome, for runs through the Bill Monroe bluegrass tune “Angels Rock Me to Sleep” and the gospelized sing-alonger, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

But it all began, a bit deceptively, with a nugget of Space Junk matter, with the instrumental “La Tingo Tango.” Touches of tango then dropped deep into Nashville mythology with “Sundown in Nashville,” which Stuart cut on his 2003 album simply and meaningfully titled Country Music. The song bemoans the city’s reputation as a dream-breaker, like Hollywood. “It’s lonely at sundown in Nashville,” Stuart sang. “That’s when beaten souls start to weep /
Each evening at sundown in Nashville / They sweep, broken dreams off the street.”

From another country music-related angle, the subject was horses — well, at least symbolically — in a ripe take on the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses.” Smoothly shifting gears, they also scored with versions of “Long Black Veil,” Buck Owens’ “Your Tender Loving Care,” and Slim Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips,” with its churning, chugging groove à la ZZ Top’s “La Grange.” 

Our Golden State figured into the equation in different ways, as with Jimmie Rodgers’ 1928-vintage song “California Blues” and drummer Stinson’s too-relevant “California Canyon Fire Blues.” After that song, Stuart again name-checked California and his love of musical things Californian from an early age, before launching into the Byrds’ “Ballad of Easy Rider.”

Stuart has a sneaky wit about him, as well. Introducing his take on the “Six Days on the Road,” Stuart posed a question: “Do we have any truck drivers in the audience?” One man raised his hand. “What am I talking about?” Stuart continued, “this is Santa Barbara, with the people who own the trucks.” After the Superlatives’s version of the Marty Robbins song “El Paso” — made famous via the Grateful Dead’s version — Stuart quipped, “I loved that song when I was in jail in Santa Barbara. Or was it Ojai?”

A general impression left by this superlative Lobero show: these guys are good people, on many fronts.