1. Eddie Stubbs Intro
2. Orange Blossom Special
3. No Hard Times Blues
4. Homesick
5. Shuckin' The Corn
6. The Whiskey Ain't Workin' Anymore
7. Mr. John Henry (intro)
8. Mr. John Henry, The Steele Drivin' Man
9. Uncle John's Intro
10. Train 45
11. Josh's Joke
12. The Great Speckled Bird
13. Sure Wanna Keep My Wine
14. Walk Like That
15. HillBilly Rock

Ryman Bluegrass

Before you did it for money, you did it for love. Whatever “it” was. Before you used it for some other reason, it was its own reason.

This is a deceptive record. On the surface it appears to be a grab-bag of tunes old and not so old, played live on one evening in Nashville. But, in fact, on it Marty Stuart is making a wide and deliberate reconnaissance of his roots, of the music, and the spirit, that has counted for him, and for the rest of us, too. Not just bluegrass but honky-tonk, rockabilly, rock and roll, country, and blues – the deep waters that made the music important before it turned into a theme park of sanitized badasses and silicone cowgirls and homogenized cliches.

Stuart has come up with one of the best and freshest recorded bluegrass performances in years by reinjecting the music with the funk and the wildness – along with the dead-eye precision – that made it so explosive in the first place.

This is a live recording, in all senses – spontaneous, electric with energy. It’s no accident that it was recorded at the Ryman Auditorium, spiritual home of country music. From the first notes of “Orange Blossom Special” (who would have thought there was anything fresh you could do with “Orange Blossom Special”?), fiddler Stuart Duncan and the rest of the band play not just with limitless technique but with soul and risk and wit and a jazzlike imagination. They take the corners on two wheels as often as not. This, they are saying, is what we can do without special effects and trick photography. See that car chase? That was a real car chase.

En route from “Orange Blossom Special” to Stuart’s signature tune “Hillbilly Rock” they tip their hats to Jimmie Rodgers and Jimmy Martin. They bring on a guest star, the great Uncle Josh Graves, dobro master. They keep the spoken intro in, just like the old days, as well as stage patter and even a joke. Uncle Josh’s version of “Train 45,” the old Grayson & Whitter standby, is a high point, as is a version of “Homesick” surrounded by the celestial harmonies of Harry Stinson and Brian Glenn, that would make even rock hearts break. The band hits rockabilly territory hard with “Sure Wanna Keep My Wine” and “Walk Like That,” and that backbeat they put under Jimmie Rodgers’ blues “No Hard Times” works just right; Stuart’s blues mandolin playing on this track would give Yank Rachel a run for his money.

Stuart is, in fact, on fire throughout this whole record, but no more so than Duncan, guitarist Kenny Vaughan, and banjoist Charlie Cushman. At the end, they reimagine Marty’s own “Hillbilly Rock” as a bluegrass romp in which everyone picks it up and breaks it down for keeps. This isn’t packaged virtuosity with every hair in place; it is the kind of virtuosity that lets you think nimbly and surprise yourself at high speeds, as when Charlie Cushman throws in that quote from Ralph Stanley’s “Clinch Mountain Backstep” at the end of his banjo solo.

There’s too much good on this record to spend time going into a lot more detail. I don’t know that you’d call it a “message” record, but for me it has a message, addressed in part to the country music industry itself, in its mansion on the hill. For one thing, it reminds us that there is no necessary contradiction between a high level of virtuosity and precision and a high level of spontaneity and spirit. For another thing, it reminds us that when you try and airbrush unruly truth out of the picture you end up with no truth at all.

“I got hard times waiting for me in Nashville town,” Stuart sings, in his own addition to Jimmie Rodgers’ lyrics on “No Hard Times”; “They say ‘we don’t want no hillbillies hanging around.’ ” Well, too bad; they’re just going to have to live with this. On this recording Marty brings it all back home, literally and figuratively; he takes all the musical polish and knowledge and virtuosity he has and puts it at the disposal of a spirit that mixes that hillbilly yell with the holler and funk of the blues – the high lonesome and the low lonesome and everything in between. What he comes up with is so strong and deft, so wild and precise, so full of spirit, that it could damn near raise the dead – which is, in a sense, what all the good stuff aims for anyway.

Tom Piazza

Novelist and Grammy Award-winning music writer Tom Piazza is the author of seven books, including the novel My Cold War and True Adventures With the King of Bluegrass, a portrait of Jimmy Martin. Visit him at www.tompiazza.com.