Country Music Hall of Fame artist Marty Stuart along with his band the Fabulous Superlatives graced the Riviera Theatre stage this past Thursday night. Stuart has a storied career that includes him earning 5 Grammy awards. He also had his own TV show between 2008 and 2022 on RFD-TV and also has played along musical icons like Johnny Cash and Lester Flatt. Stuart continues to release new studio albums with the latest offering ‘Altitude’ being released in 2023. Stuart’s band The Fabulous Superlatives is comprised of Kenny Vaughn on guitar, Harry Stinson on drums and Chris Scruggs on bass.
The band opened up with an instrumental number called “La Tingo Tango,” which is a great warm up song to get the juices flowing. Stuart talked about his close working relationship with Travis Tritt and went on to play “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin.” Stuart described how in the past he had an off day in Buffalo one time and wrote “Sitting Alone.” So that was played and dedicated to the area. He talked about working with Johnny Cash (he eventually married his daughter Cindy for five years) and how he got to learn a lot from him. He dedicated “The Wall” in his honor. Vaughn took lead vocals to sing a few of his songs in “Country Music Has a Hold on Me” and “Hot Like That.” Stuart asked how many truck drivers are in the house tonight? Only 1 person raised their hand and he couldn’t believe it. The band then dedicated to any truck drivers not in attendance, we will play what we consider the truck driver national anthem in “Six Days” to your honor. Stuart played mandolin on this track and Stinson then came up to play a snare drum with brushes for the tune as well. Scruggs handled the lead vocals on “Brain Cloudy Blues.” The funny part of the evening is when the band played Wipeout, the first solo was played by Stinson who opened up his mouth and slapped each side of his face in rhythm to the song. Stinson went on to sing lead vocals for “Pretty Boy Floyd.” Stinson continued to show his talent by playing a 12 string guitar for “Flow River Flow.”
Overall, this was fantastic night of true musicianship and great vocals throughout each song. The band played off each other and it seemed effortlessly. Even when one changed instruments, it didn’t matter. They were a well oiled machine. Also, from looking at other shows, they constantly are switching up the setlists too. So kudos to them for keeping their chops up live and keeping it fresh. This was my first time seeing the and and hopefully it won’t be my last.
Setlist:
La Tingo Tango
Tear the Woodpile Down
Tempted
Hillbilly Rock
The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ (Travis Tritt cover)
Sitting Alone
Tomahawk
The Wall (Johnny Cash cover)
Mojave
Country Music Has a Hold on Me (Kenny Vaughn song)
Hot Like That (Kenny Vaughn song)
Six Days
El Paso
Brain Cloudy Blues (Bob Willis cover)
Wipe Out (The Surfari’s cover)
Pretty Boy Floyd (Woody Guthrie cover)
Flow River Flow
Time Don’t Wait
Encore:
Space
We would like to thank David Fillenwarth from the Riviera Theater for the credentials to review the show.
