Highways and Heartaches: How Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, and Children of the New South Saved the Soul of Country Music

The 1964 murder of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, MS, might seem like an odd bookend for a history of the careers of country and bluegrass mainstays Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart. But Philadelphia is the latter’s birthplace, and if the political, cultural, and spiritual currents of the ensuing 60 years otherwise linger lightly in Streissguth’s (Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville) narrative, this framing is an acknowledgment that no music occurs in a vacuum. The book’s title is taken from Skaggs’s 1982 album and is a mosaic, or perhaps a map, with Skaggs’s and Stuart’s careers as navigational threads through an important and tumultuous period of country and bluegrass music history. Though even casual fans will recognize some of the stars with whom both players have been associated—Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash, most famously—it’s unsurprisingly a who’s who of significant names, with mandolinist/singer/songwriter Bill Monroe’s long shadow cast over all.