Review: Marty Stuart Details the Making of a Masterpiece in New Book 'The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey'

In 1999, Marty Stuart released an ambitious concept album that was unlike anything he'd done before, and unlike anything seen in country music; The Pilgrim. Now, 20 years after The Pilgrim debuted, Marty Stuart has released a coffee table book titled The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey, with a foreword from Billy Bob Thornton and a wealth of photos from Stuart's personal archive.

The story of The Pilgrim has its origin in a true event from Stuart's hometown of Philadelphia, MS. A man fell in love and pursued a women who he did not know was married, only to have her husband discover them and shoot himself in front of the couple. From there, Stuart continues the man's (who we only know as The Pilgrim) story as he hoboed across the country with the intention of walking into the Pacific ocean to die.

Pictures from Marty Stuart’s ‘The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey’

But it's the equally interesting story of the making, and aftermath, of The Pilgrim that is detailed in the book's stories and pictures. In the late 1990s, Marty Stuart was an unlikely country hitmaker, a man who still straddled the line of tradition in a genre increasingly made up of slick pop-country artists like Shania Twain. Finding himself tired of the grind of constantly chasing a hit and an airplay slot, Stuart longed for something bigger.

The final push that led him to make The Pilgrim was the death of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. Stuart was in the famous Sun Studios looking for inspiration when he heard of Monroe's death and took a walk to process it. When he returned from his walk, he had the lines “I am a lonesome pilgrim far from home/And what a journey I have known/I might be tired and weary, but I am strong/Pilgrims walk, but not alone” and the germ of an album concept.

The resulting album was like nothing country music had ever heard. While there had been country concept albums before (the most famous being Willie Nelson's The Redheaded Stranger), it had not seen a concept album like The Pilgrim. Calling on his numerous friends to play the roles of the story's characters, The Pilgrim played more like a rock opera than a country album. But what a set of friends it was! Guests on the album included Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, George Jones, Connie Smith, Uncle Josh Graves, and Stuart's old boss Johnny Cash, who narrated the poem that closed out the album.

Anyone familiar with the corporate record industry can guess the rest. The album was a critical smash and a commercial flop. Its linear narrative didn't make for an easy hit and Stuart's label BMG barely promoted the album before putting it on the shelf and Stuart in the unemployment line. This part of the story makes for the most interesting read in The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey. Stuart knew he was likely committing commercial country suicide if he released the album and the essays in the book go into detail about his struggles to reconcile his desire to transition into more complex and artistically satisfying direction and the fear of sacrificing the fame and fortunes that come with hits. If the only story in the book was Stuart's recollection of a late night visit to the home of Johnny Cash, who knew a bit about going from a superstar to a forgotten name in the mainstream, to talk about his conflicted emotions, it would be worth the book's modest $30 price tag.

Marty Stuart with Johnny Cash and George Jones, from ‘The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey’

In addition to the hefty 11”x10.5” book, there is also an included CD that not only contains the entire The Pilgrim album but also 10 unreleased bonus tracks from the session that Stuart discovered while revisiting the album's archives. Listening to that album again, it's remarkable how forward thinking it was. The term “Americana” as a musical genre was barely known in 1999, and certainly didn't have celebrities like Jason Isbell and Margo Price to tout, but The Pilgrim is practically a mission statement for why the genre was born; an ode to artistic freedom and ambition without the constraints of hits and singles. With The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey, Marty Stuart has given a beautifully illustrated, both in words and pictures, look at the making of an album and the mind of an artist.

This Summer, Marty Stuart will be traveling the country on a co-headlining tour with The Steve Miller Band. You can find his full slate of dates here.