Recorded in Nashville with his longtime band The Fabulous Superlatives – Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson and Chris Scruggs – ‘Altitude’ finds Stuart, a 5-time GRAMMY winner, Country Music Hall of Famer and AMA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, picking up where he left off on 2017’s ‘Way Out West’, exploring a cosmic country landscape populated by dreamers and drifters, misfits and angels, honky-tonk heroes and lonesome lovers.
“I’ve always loved songs that feel like old friends but still sound new and fresh,” says Stuart about ‘Altitude.’ “The beautiful thing about country music is that the blueprint Jimmie Rodgers laid down—rambling, gambling, sin, redemption, Heaven, Hell—it’s all just as relevant now as it ever was. It’s the human condition, and if you’re honest about it and you’ve got a real band around you, you can make something that’s uniquely yours and stands the test of time.” Unique is a great word, but just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to trying to find superlatives (see what I did there?) to describe this wonderfully eclectic album.
The album opens and closes with two, of three, instrumentals in the ‘Lost Bird Space Train series before erupting in full ‘Johnny B Goode’ mode with ‘Country Star’ as Stuart details a series of tongue-in-cheek, unfortunate events that have turned him into said ‘Country Star’. Full on 50s Rock N Roll here folks as the honky tonk piano wails away and the ghost of Chuck Berry nods approvingly.
Elsewhere, ‘Altitude’ takes you on a musical and generational journey through the best of the last 50 years of music history. ‘Nightriding’ channels those 50s and 60s vibes again with its walking bass line. For a touchstone, think somewhere between the soundtracks to ‘Grease’ and ‘From Dusk til Dawn’. There’s also a hint of Chris Isaak in this cinematic, confident song about cruising down the road and looking cool. Similarly, ‘Time to Dance’ brings a kind of ZZ Top meets Chuck Berry sensibility to proceedings on what is the most rocking song on the album and one destined to become something of a classic each time it is played at the Ryman in Nashville.
Whilst we’re in cinematic territory, lets talk ‘A Friend on Mine’ and ‘Tomahawk’. Both could have been lifted right of a Tarrantino soundtrack. The former, in which Stuart calls out to dreamers, misfits and drifters everywhere, would have been right at home on ‘Pulp Fiction’ and when he sings, ‘Do you get tired of being told the facts when you know they are not real,’ he somehow manages to hit the nail on the head of the current divisions America is finding itself wracked with without espousing one side or the other. ‘Tomahawk’, meanwhile, is all 60s rhythms and rockabilly cadence as Stuart, succinctly, declares, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Theres a hint of Johnny Cash jamming with The Animals as his Superlatives play some cracking Country & Western alongside him.
There are other cowboy vibes to be found on ‘Altitude’, but maybe not in the format you might be expecting. ‘The Sun is Quietly Sleeping’ is a 60’s influenced, Beatles-leaning number than feels like the product of a Simon & Garfunkel writing retreat out in the Mojave desert! If there isn’t yet a genre for ‘Psychedelic Cowboy’ music in existence yet then Marty Stuart just done and gone invented it! Classical strings underpinned by an intermittent military drumbeat only add to this song’s potency. The title track is more of the same, Western plains influenced Psychedelic Cowboy drama! Stuart is challenging the norms here on this unconventional song that is both challenging to listen to and comfortably familiar at the same time. You can hear a linear path right back to Jimmie Rodgers on this powerful song as long as you can dig Marty Stuart putting his own unique twists and style all over the top of it too. ‘The Angels Come Down’, meanwhile, is pure Johnny Cash, dark, heartfelt balladry of the highest order and might well be the Country crowd’s favourite song on the album.
At the same time as inventing ‘Psychedelic Cowboy’ music Marty Stuart also does a good line ‘Prog Rock Cowboy’ music at the same time. ‘Sitting Alone’ has a Lennon and McCartney cadence to the vocals and the jangly guitars and is driven by a guitar line that sounds unnervingly like the one in theme tune to the Friends TV show but it is ‘Space’ where Stuart really casts off all conventions and inhibitions. It begins with some eastern-sounding, Led Zeppelin style guitar as Stuart sings about being ‘out of the in crowd.’ What follows is a ‘spacey’ (obvious pun intended) romp through some Pink Floyd-esque moments on a song that you feel could erupt at any given moment but is probably all the more stronger for the fact that it doesn’t.
‘Altitude’ is a clever, eclectic and, at times, convention breaking piece of work. There’s a comfort in listening to Marty Stuart’s brand of Country music but you have to be prepared for him to walk you down a unique or ground breaking path at any given moment. Country, Rockabilly, Rock n Roll, Blues and Soul are all melded into this diverse melting pot of sounds and for an artist of Stuarts stature to still be wanting to push the envelop at this stage of his career when similar artists are just peddling greatest hits and lazy, music-by-numbers releases is testament to the quality of the man and his vision for the genre.
Track list: 1. Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 1) 2. Country Star 3. Sitting Alone 4. A Friend of Mine 5. Space 6. Altitude 7. Vegas 8. The Sun is Quietly Sleeping 9. Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 2) 10. Nightriding 11. Tomahawk 12. Time to Dance 13. The Angels Came Down 14. Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 3) Record Label: Snakefarm Release Date: May 19th Buy ‘Altitude’ right now
