Article Contributed by Morris Public Relations
Published on 2026-10-16
The cover for each volume of 50 Years From Home celebrates special instruments from Vince Gill's collection. This installment includes Marty Stuart’s storied Fender Telecaster and Gill’s custom Mark Whitebook acoustic, both guitars formerly owned by Clarence White.
Vince Gill met—and became friends with—Marty Stuart more than 50 years ago. Stuart was a teenager touring with Lester Flatt at the time, while Gill was playing in one of his teenage bluegrass bands. To call them kindred spirits is an understatement.
"We've been good, tight buddies ever since then," says Gill, who played on Stuart's first solo single, "Arlene," back in 1985. Both subsequently became members of the Grand Ole Opry and were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Both have won multiple Grammy Awards, along with honors from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music.
"We're so much alike in our deep love for what genuinely matters in this world of music,” Gill explains. “I see Marty as one of the folks, like myself, who's respectful and reverent of the past, and knows a lot about it. We have so much of our history intertwined. It's a great friendship."
Stuart returns his admiration: “I was in New York City once and witnessed a high wire artist walk a tightrope that was stretched between two Manhattan skyscrapers. A crowd of us stood below, held our breath and hoped for the best for the daring man who was up in the air following his dreams. When he was safely across, everyone cheered. The person standing next to me said, “Why would he do such a thing?” Someone answered and said, “Because he can.” The same could be said of Vince and this grand undertaking of a project. First and foremost, he has the heart for the job. And then there’s his talent. It’s otherworldly. Regardless of what’s trending in Music City, Vince can always be depended on to deliver state-of-the-art, integrity-based music to the forefront. This project confirms that yet again.”
So, it only makes sense that Gill's 50 Years From Home series would eventually lean into that relationship.
Marty And Me, the eleventh EP in the series, does just that, featuring five new songs the pair of iconic music veterans wrote together, including one, "Praying Like Hell For Rain," that features Stuart dueting on vocals and guitar. Conceptually, it’s different from the ten 50 Years From Home volumes that preceded it, celebrating their long association by bringing the two together in a writing space.
"It was fun to finally hook up with Marty and write some songs. It seems silly we never did before," says Gill. "We're so similar in what we love that it's fun to sit down with somebody you know, who feels the same way about feels and all those kinds of things that come up when you’re writing. He loves it really, really country, like I do, and that shows up in all the songs.”
“Regardless of what’s trending in Music City, Vince can always be depended on to deliver state-of-the-art, integrity-based music to the forefront. This project confirms that yet again.” MARTY STUART
Marty And Me also celebrates their musical kinship on the EP’s cover, which features a Fender Telecaster guitar owned by Stuart and a custom Mark Whitebook acoustic model that belongs to Gill. Both were owned by the late guitar hero Clarence White, a onetime member of the Byrds who is revered worldwide as a musician. "Clarence had a brother named Roland," Gill explains, "and when I first met Marty, he was playing in Lester Flatt’s band, as was Roland. Roland was playing that very guitar that had once belonged to Clarence. He was so kind to me, so encouraging. He would give me guitar strings—just the best guy ever. We stayed friends from then until his passing, at which point his widow Diane sold me that guitar—the guitar that was not only Roland's but also Clarence's. It's an important piece of history. So, these guitars are in good hands with me and Marty."
“Vince and I share many of the same musical heroes,” Stuart adds. “When a family member of any of those heroes trusts you with one of their family treasures, I view it as an honor, but it also can be seen as a responsibility. It’s profound to be entrusted as the keeper of someone’s legacy. Vince and I both have rooms that are filled with musical treasures with great stories attached. Clarence is one of the most revered guitarists of all time. He sadly lost his life at age 29, leaving behind a family and a great unfinished musical masterpiece in the making. Clarence’s widow Suzy entrusted me with Clarence’s storied electric guitar. It’s been in my keeping since 1980.”
The uptempo "Praying Like Hell For Rain" kicks Marty And Me off in the Dust Bowl with Gill and Stuart singing as a pair of characters who just happen to be from their respective home states of Oklahoma and Mississippi. “I had that first verse started when he came over,” I'm from a one-horse town in Oklahoma,” he recalls. “And in the second verse Marty sings, I’m from deep down south in Mississippi. It made a great duet.”
"Wanting Me" takes the EP into heartbreak territory, with harmony vocals from singer and songwriter Sonya Isaacs. "That song is reminiscent to me of a Merle Haggard kind of song.” When did you stop wanting me? "It only has one verse, and a lot of Merle Haggard songs had one verse—not tons of information, but just enough to tell the story."
Marty And Me keeps the Kleenex box out for "My Broken Heart Can't Take It Anymore," a two-stepper whose narrator is mired in Lonelyville, with John Meador from Gill's band adding plaintive backing vocals. "It hearkens back to all that music I cut my teeth on,” says Gill, “those real good country shuffles, like 'Above and Beyond' by Buck Owens, with that great two-part harmony.”
The steel- and piano-led "The Girl That Calls My Name" is a travelin' song that follows classic tropes of long highways and missing the one you left back home. "It's very imagery-driven,” says Gill. “I can see the lights of Reno. That's just about our love of white lines and truckers and the road.”
The last of the new songs is, appropriately enough, "Marty And Me," a waltz that is Gill and Stuart's own "Pancho and Lefty"—except with real-life characters and the feel of a genial toast between longtime running buddies. "This one really hits home, because there aren’t many people in your life who have been there for the entirety of what you've done," Gill says. “I especially like the line You picked like the wind and I sang like a bird. That's the truth. It's pretty emotional." Stuart adds, “I love and cherish my old friend. The Marty And Me EP is a chapter in this overall project that I will always cherish as well. The song tells mine and Vince’s story. The other songs that surround that track are touchstones of the kind of country music that lives in the deepest part of our hearts.”
As has become a habit on the 50 Years From Home EPs, Marty And Me finishes with a Gill classic—this time his rendition of Merle Haggard's "The Bottle Let Me Down" from the 2013 Bakersfield album he recorded with Paul Franklin. “The Bakersfield album was a record I was really proud of," Gill says. “It made sense for a Merle Haggard song to be the last thing you hear on this EP.”
Like the other 50 Years From Home EPs—which Gill has crafted to celebrate five decades since he left his native Norman, Okla., to pursue his musical career—Marty And Me was produced and recorded by Gill at his home studio near Nashville, with engineers Justin Niebank and Matt Rausch and a core group of musicians that includes Franklin on steel guitar, Gordon Mote on piano, guitarists Jedd Hughes and Tom Bukovac, Jim "Moose" Brown on organ, bassist Jimmie Lee Sloas, and drummer Fred Eltringham.
