Mississippi Quote of the Day: How Johnny Cash "Ruined" Marty Stuart's Mandolin

Famously down-to-earth and approachable, Marty Stuart is a consummate artist of the country music genre, but he has made his mark in Americana roots music, southern-style gospel and hillbilly rock, too.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Miss., the prodigiously talented Stuart mowed lawns to make enough money to buy his first Fender guitar and amp. He was only 13 when he started touring with bluegrass legend Lester Flatt and later collaborated with legends like Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Stuart also owns one of the most extensive collections of music memorabilia in the world, including custom-made suits owned by Elton John and Hank Williams’ handwritten lyrics to “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” But, as he explained to CMT in 2005, it’s an old mandolin – “ruined” by Cash himself – that has turned out to be priceless:
“Well, I’d saved my money to buy that mandolin when I got a job with Lester Flatt, and it was $650. For years, I was real proud of the fact that it never had a scratch on it. It looked like a brand new instrument for probably 12 or 13 years. When I got a job with Johnny Cash, he got on a kick of wanting me to teach him how to play the mandolin. And he was a horrible mandolin player. He’d take my mandolin on the stage and just play along with June Carter when she was singin’. One night I looked over there, and he had his pocketknife out and scratched a huge cross on it and put his initials, JRC, on it and then flipped the mandolin over and autographed it and signed, ‘Johnny Cash.’ My heart fell. After the show, I said, ‘What did you do that for?’ and he said, ‘I didn’t want you to forget the Lord.’ And I told him I could have remembered the Lord without him wrecking my mandolin. But it was all in good fun. And that started a trend after that. People just felt compelled to sign the mandolin. It has Stephen King, President Clinton, Bob Dylan, Billy Bob Thornton, Chuck Berry, Quincy Jones, Natalie Cole, ex-girlfriends, my momma, and a lot of people I don’t know on there. I’m about to run out of places for people to sign.”

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Rick Hynum is editor-in-chief of HottyToddy.com. Email him at rick.hynum@hottytoddy.com.