Mountain Jam 2017 

Hunter Mountain, NY

June 17, 2017

 

“So the chorus goes like this.”

 

Mike Campbell strums a black Fender Stratocaster as Marty Stuart watches the Heartbreaker guitarist’s hands glide across the fretboard running through “Crawling Back To You” in his dressing room backstage at the Mountain Jam festival in upstate New York.

 

“I think I’ve got it,” says the country music legend, who started playing in Lester Flatt’s band in 1972 at the age of fourteen. Marty and Mike became friends in 1995 when Stuart joined Tom and the Heartbreakers as Johnny Cash’s backing band at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles for the recording of Unchained, the follow-up to Cash's Grammy-winning American Recordings with producer Rick Rubin. In late 2015, Marty dropped in for a visit during the Mudcrutch 2 sessions and subsequently asked Mike to produce Way Out West, his newest album with his incredible band, The Fabulous Superlatives.

 

Marty definitely got it. Appearing from the darkness with an old Telecaster as the dust settled after another enormous “It’s Good To Be King,” Marty set up between Mike and Tom and knocked it out, taking one solo before sharing the next with Mike. Big smiles all over the stage, and after the song ended, Tom called Marty back out as he walked off stage.

 

“Marty Stuart, get back out here and take a bow!”

 

Rockin’ Around With You

Mary Jane’s Last Dance

You Don’t Know How It Feels

Forgotten Man

You Got Lucky

I Won’t Back Down

Free Fallin’

Walls

Don’t Come Around Here No More

It’s Good To Be King

Crawling Back to You (with Marty Stuart, guitar)

Wildflowers

Learning to Fly

Yer So Bad

I Should Have Known It

Refugee

Runnin’ Down A Dream

You Wreck Me

American Girl