The Media Tourist

Marty Stuart’s lanky, cool-cat singing drummer on his Nashville roots, making a movie with Bette Midler, kickstarting the Americana movement and avoiding a fume-y future

Harry Stinson (right) with Marty Stuart (top) and fellow Fabulous Superlatives Chris Scruggs (left) and Kenny Vaughn

Harry Stinson is a unicorn.

No, not the mythical horse-like creature with a long, spiraled horn spouting out of the middle of his head. But something almost as rare.

He’s a singing drummer. And for further cred as a rarity, he’s a musician who didn’t have to uproot and leave home to get to Music City.

Stinson, the longtime drummer—and harmony vocalist—for Marty Stuart’s rhinestone-spangled Fabulous Superlatives band, is a Nashville native who found his life’s true calling in the basement of Dottie West, the late singing, songwriting hitmaker who, among other things, was the first country female to win a Grammy, became a pre-Dolly duet partner with Kenny Rogers and wrote and recorded a smash 1970s jingle—“Country Sunshine”—for Coca-Cola.

“I was really good friends in high school with Dottie’s oldest son, Morris,” says Stinson. “And we put a little rock band together—original music, about the time of Barefoot Jerry and Area Code 615,” two popular Nashville-based breakout country-rock bands of the early 1970s.

West had a small recording space in her basement, and Stinson’s band would woodshed down there—where he became a singing drummer, or a drumming singer.

“Since I was the only guy in our group who could sing, I was kind of chosen by default,” he says, adding that West’s basement was the crucible where his musical abilities all came together. “That was my school, my college for being a singing drummer; I’ll always be grateful because that’s been my biggest tool in the toolbox. The lucky thing was, I could sing well, and I could sing high, so I was able to cover a lot of ground. That really increases your worth as a band member or a player.”

You can hear him singing, and drumming, on the new album from five-time Grammy winner Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, Altitude, set for release May 19.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Stinson opens up about music, his stint as a record-company executive, making a movie with Bette Midler and tapping into the Tao of Ringo Starr.

What kind of music did you grow up listening to?

I listened to a mixture of everything after the Beatles came along. I wasn’t really attracted to music before the British Invasion; I wasn’t into “Peppermint Twist.” I started listening when the Beatles came out, and stations began playing everything; you could hear soul and pop and novelty songs, all that stuff. I also listened to WSM and the Grand Ole Opry; my dad would have it on in the house. And I liked bluegrass but listened more to pop growing up.

How did you get into drumming?

When I was in the third grade, my parents bought a piano. I took piano lessons and liked it, but not as much as drums. I loved the drums; I loved rhythm. I begged them for a set, and they gave me something that resembled a drum set. And then I got another set—my first real, brand-new drum kit. But it didn’t have everything; it didn’t have a high hat or a floor tom. It was just the basic minimum. But I played the heck out of it, and I worked cutting grass all that summer to buy a floor tom. And that’s the set I used on our TV show, The Marty Stuart Show [on RFD-TV], because it’s a smaller-size kit and perfect for that setup. They were practically brand new; I had kept them in good shape, in my parents’ house, in their boxes.

Do you remember your first gig, playing in front of people?

Over at [elementary] school, I was the drummer who would play a drum roll when the flag would come up the aisle for school assemblies. Then, in 8^th grade, we had a little three-piece band called the Goldbugs, and we all basically played out of one amp. I had a makeshift set of drums. But we won the talent show and went on to the citywide talent show, and I think we won that, too, or came close, second or third maybe. One of the DJs was Noble Blackwell from WVOL; he hosted the TV show Night Train on Channel 5, on Fridays or Saturday nights.

Most people can’t play drums, and a lot of people can’t sing. How did you fare when you started out doing both?

Well, it was difficult to line up the lyrics with the beat, because sometimes you sing behind the beat and sometimes in front of it, but you have to keep the beat on the beat.

Were your parents supportive of your career path—to become a professional musician?

They were. My mom the one that insisted we have a piano. My dad drove for Greyhound; that’s what brought them to Nashville in the late ‘40s. I think they were skeptical, as far as me being a professional drummer, because it was uncharted territory for them; their idea of a career would have been for me to go to college, learn a trade and get a job, and that makes perfect sense. My mom said, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always get a job at the Esso station.’ But I never doubted myself, and that’s the thing. They never said I shouldn’t do it, ever.

Well, things worked out and you avoided that fume-y future pumping gas! What other jobs, beyond drumming, have you had along the way?

Luckily, I haven’t had any other jobs. I was a waiter for TGI Friday’s just before I went to college. But I’ve been lucky enough to just make my living playing music.

You’ve kept the beat, and kept singing, through gigs with the band America, with country singer-songwriter Steve Earle, with many other acts in the studio. And then you became, about 20 years ago, one of the founding members of the Superlatives. What’s one of the coolest places you’ve played?  

[The Superlatives] played with Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo tour [the 2019 concert events commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the Byrds’ seminal country-rock album]. That was a blast for me, going back to my living room in Nashville trying to learn to play the drums, listening to “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.” That was part of my musical DNA from the beginning. What a thrill to have Chris [Hillman] over there playing bass, and Roger [McGuinn] up there singing.”

You spent a decade in California, until the mid 1980s, when you came back to Nashville. You were playing in a band, singing on sessions and then writing songs. What drew you to songwriting?

You live in Los Angeles, you’ll do anything to make a buck. I was in a video; I was on American Bandstand one time. As a background singer, you do whatever you can do. Then, that singer-songwriter kind of country rock, which I was really in love with, was falling out of favor on the radio, and those kinds of gigs were drying up. Toward the end of my stay in L.A., I started playing demo sessions for songwriters, and I kept thinking, ‘They’re paying me to play on them, but I can write better songs than this.’ I’m not as much in touch with the songwriting as other people are [now]. But I do still write. Marty and I have collaborated on quite a few things, and [guitarist] Kenny [Vaughn] and I have as well. But it’s not the easiest thing in the world for me to do. Marty’s got that channel really well-oiled, but for me, it’s always a little squeaky.

During your California days, you also co-starred with Bette Midler!

Oh, God, that was a fun experience. [He played a drummer in the 1979 film The Rose, for a scene in a nightclub where Midler’s character, Rose, reconnects with her musical roots.] She blows off a big concert and goes back to a local bar. That was the scene. I was asked by a friend of mine, who was putting together a country band for the film. We spent two days filming in some little sailors’ bar down in Long Beach. We played with a click system using spotlights; there were four of them, different colors, and they were timed as cues for the musical track; we used the lights to keep in sync. I’d never experienced anything like that before.

And then, you became a label executive, starting Dead Reckoning Records in the mid-1990s in Nashville with singer-songwriters Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch, Tammy Rogers and Mike Henderson.

We were all buddies. We had our own little crew. We decided to form a collective, like John Prine had done with Oh Boy. We knew we weren’t going to be able to make a deal where we could make any money with anyone else, and we were trying to get out stuff on the radio. So we decided to learn the record business—distribution, marketing—on a real roots level. It was the beginning of the Americana movement. We put a band together and went on the road, kind of like a revue. We made enough money to make the next record, and that was about it. I was so busy with the company, everybody thought I was a big record exec and I’d be too busy to play their sessions. So, all my work dried up. It was kind of a disaster, financially. But I learned a lot and I’m really glad I did it. It’s helped me with my perspective in the music business.

How did you get hooked up with Marty Stuart?

I was working with Steve [Earle] on Guitar Town [his debut album], and he had also been signed to MCA; he was under [label exec and producer] Tony Brown’s umbrella. He was aware of me when we were cutting Guitar Town, and when it came time for Marty to start making records [for MCA], my name must have come up with Tony, and somebody said, ‘Let’s get him in to sing on some stuff.’ So, I sang on a few things for Marty’s first MCA album [Hillbilly Rock, 1989]. Then I ended up playing, as well as singing, on some of his later records, “Burn Me Down,” “This One’s Gonna Hurt You.” We clicked; I really liked his sensibility—Southern and cool and rocking, all at the same time. He has that acoustic side very well developed, too, with his mandolin playing and bluegrass knowledge, which I also love.

Playing with Marty lets you showcase both your drumming and your singing, especially when he brings all the Superlatives “up front” for a vocal spotlight.

He brings everybody up for a couple of songs because he was a fan of how Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs would let Uncle Josh and Cousin Jake come up, and Paul Warren would do a solo. I mean, they were the Foggy Mountain Boys! They were a force. It wasn’t just Lester and Earl the whole time. [Marty] likes that comradery and the spark and the spontaneity.

Do you see the career path you chose, all those years ago, as leading you where you always wanted to go?

It’s more like following a creative spirit than a career. I think I’ve always wanted to be in creative situations, because the creative part is what fuels everything. Being able to come up with a drum part or a vocal part or write a song or make a record—it’s all about creating, and I love that part of it.

OK, a final drumming question. Which of these choices describes your drumming ethos: A.) More bang, more buck, B.) Less is more, or C.) What would Ringo do?

It’s a combination between A and B, because less is more, and Ringo was so amazing. He still is amazing, and amazing as a human being. I was attracted to Ringo’s style of playing from the get-go. It’s about joy, about love, about swing, all those things he had. And he wasn’t a “chops” guy, not like a Neal Peart, which is also fine. But I prefer somebody that supports a creative way, rather than just playing every lick they know.

The roots-rockin’ sibs of Larkin Poe talk about their Southern roots, a Nashville homecoming and a certain iconic Boston ancestor

They’ve crisscrossed Europe, played Japan and barnstormed America in support of their seven studio albums. The most recent, Blood Harmony, was released in November.

Sisters Megan and Rebecca Lovell have been in musical harmony since they were youngsters, first as classically trained violinists, then in a bluegrass band before discovering the crunch and punch of electric instruments.

As Larkin Poe, they’re now bona fide “rock chicks” with roots in the deep, wide and rich musical culture of the South, where boogie and blues, soulful gospel harmonies, gothic storytelling, folklore and other fertile elements formed the firmament of rock and roll.

“Our childhood was full of different kinds of music,” says Megan, 33, whose electric Rickenbacker lap steel dobro has become integral to Larkin Poe’s sound and stage presence. “Our parents were real music lovers, so we grew up in a diverse musical household. In the past few years, we’ve really delved into blues music and have been going back to learn the history of Southern rock, like the Allman Brothers, and who they were inspired by.”

“We like to describe it as roots rock ‘n’ roll,” says Rebecca, 32, who occasionally swaps her Fender Stratocaster or Jazzmaster for a mandolin.

They write the bulk of their own songs, but on record and on stage, they’ve been known to cover tunes from blues legends Son House, Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Leadbelly, plus Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan, The Band, Cher, Johnny Cash, Neil Young and the Fisk Jubilee Singers—and yes, the Allman Brothers. Their version of the Blind Willie Johnson call-and-response gospel classic “John the Revelator” was used in the hit Fox TV show Lucifer. They’ve performed with Elvis Costello and toured with Bob Seger.

They acknowledged many of their influences in their 2020 album Kindred Spirits, an eclectic collection of music that had shaped them, from Eric Clapton’s “Bell Bottom Blues” to Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock.”

“There’s such a kinship in music with roots that have grown out of the same place,” says Rebecca.

Their own roots are in East Tennessee, where Megan and Rebecca were born, later relocating with their parents near Atlanta. They released their first album, Kin, in 2014, then resettled in Nashville. Their 2017 album Peach was a nod to growing up in Calhoun, Ga.

This week, on Friday, March 31, Larkin Poe will play downtown’s Brooklyn Bowl, making a special appearance in their adopted hometown. “The very first show that] Brooklyn Bowl did [in 2019] was a Larkin Poe show,” says Megan. “It was right at the beginning of the pandemic, and we did a livestream for Self Made Man,” their fifth album.

“There’s something special about getting to play a show, then drive a couple of miles and sleep in your own bed,” says Rebecca, excited about the Nashville date on their Blood Kin tour. “It’s very sweet to be [back] in our hometown. We were born over in Knoxville and our grandparents live in Morristown, just a hip, hop and a wobble from Nashville. Being close to the Smoky Mountains is one of my absolute favorite things about Nashville—that in just a few hours, we can get back to the land we grew up on as kids. It’s good family vibes all around.”

Those family vibes extend back through multiple generations, to a famous relative—the poet and short story writer Edgar Allen Poe. The literary master of mystery and the macabre was a distant cousin of Megan and Rebecca’s great-great-great-great grandfather, Larkin Poe, whose moniker the sisters took as their musical namesake.

Their parents had collections of Edgar Allen Poe in their extensive home library, so the sisters read up on their Boston-based ancestor, best known for his gloomy tales of dread and death. “The darkness and Southern Gothic-ness of his writing appealed to us,” says Megan. But they missed—or avoided—most of the horror movies based on his classics, like “The Raven,” “The Black Cat,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death” and most recently, “The Lighthouse.”

“I’m definitely a purist when it comes to books I cherish,” says Rebecca. “I don’t want my mental image to be bullied to someone else’s representation, to be honest.”

Megan has another explanation for why her sister stays away from movie adaptations of their ancestor’s frightening tales. “Rebecca is very scared by horror movies,” she says.

Quoth the raven, or at least paraphrase: Rock on, Larkin Poe, evermore! And welcome home.

—Neil Pond

Emily Portman channels the Coal Miner’s Daughter in ‘Always Loretta,’ a touring tribute show coming to Nashville March 21

The queen is gone, but her spirit lives on in Always Loretta, a tribute show coming to Nashville’s Troubadour Theater on Tuesday night, March 21.

The one-night-only event features Emily Portman singing the songs of country superstar Loretta Lynn, along with a slew of special guests cheering her on—Lynn’s sister, Crystal Gayle, and Nancy Jones, the wife of the late legendary George Jones, are expected to be there.

How did this small-town Kentucky gal come to channel the Coal Miner’s Daughter?

“I was in a band years ago, called Country Cooking, in Kentucky, where I’m from,” she says. “We played a really good little show out in Lebanon Junction [Kentucky], and the guys there told me I sounded like Loretta Lynn.” A steel guitar player gave her a stack of Lynn’s CDs and suggested that she study them.

“So, I learned the songs and really started honing in on her voice and her mannerisms,” says Portman. “I started singing them and did a few shows on my own around the state.”

A few years later, around 2008, she auditioned for the Loretta Lynn role in a touring roadshow musical, Conway Twitty: The Man, The Music, The Legend, based on the life of Lynn’s 1970s singing partner and featuring Alabama singer Glenn Templeman as Twitty. Portman got the part, and she says it was “God’s hand” showing her a direction.

The Twitty trbute hit the road but eventually fizzled out, as things do. But over the next decade, she sang Loretta Lynn songs every chance she got. People would find her on YouTube, and book her to come to their fair, festival or dinner theater. She would sing all the hits—“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “The Pill,” “Fist City,” “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind”—as well as some of Portman’s persoal favorites, lesser-known tunes like “Hey Loretta,” a 1973 single from Lynn’s second album, or 1974’s “What Sundown Does to You.”

Playing Loretta on stage, Portman says, “is something I love to do, and it’s like it’s as easy as breathing to me. I sound like Loretta. If I had to do Reba or Dolly, I’d have to really practice.”

And she looks like Loretta, too, with her hair—sometimes a wig—and her stage attire. Last year, Portman (above) was asked by one of Lynn’s Coal Miner’s band members to come and sing a few songs at a reunion event for the group. Another musician saw her backstage and thought he was seeing things—like, the real Loretta Lynn, some 50 years ago.

“I had my hair done and my long Coal Miner’s Daughter dress on,” says Portman. “He said, ‘I swear, I thought that was Loretta standing back there.’”

When Portman and the Twitty musical came to Nashville, and she guested on the Grand Ole Opry, guess who was also there that night? That’s right, Loretta Lynn.

Backstage, Lynn’s daughter said, “Mama, this is Emily. She’s playing you in the Conway show.” Loretta looked at Portman and said, “Honey, you look just like me,” and she “smiled real big and hugged me tight.”

That just confirmed to Portman that she was doing what she was destined to do.

She got to be friends with Loretta, visiting the country queen in her Hurricane Mills home, west of Nashville. The first thing Loretta said to her, the first time she was there, was “‘They told me you was coming, so I want back there and brushed my teeth,’” says Portman. “It completely eased my mind because I was a little scared and nervous.”

Sounding, and looking like Loretta aren’t the only similarities shared by Portman, now 43, and Loretta, who died in October last year at age 90. “I’ve got six kids, just like Loretta,” Portman says. “I live in a rural area, like Loretta did.” Portman’s home in central Kentucky, near Leitchfield, is about five or six hours away, on the other side of the state, from where Loretta grew up, near Paintsville. “Kentucky is pretty wide,” says Portman.

But in the back of her mind, she feels a kinship with Loretta—and Loretta felt it, too. “Loretta Lynn told me herself, ‘We’ve got a real connection’,” she says. “She looked me in the eye and told me that, and it really went deep.” And Portman isn’t fully convinced they’re not related, both being native Kentuckians. “I wonder, if we were to dig down, we’d probably be kin somewhere along the line. My grandma was from Crab Orchard in East Kentucky, too [like Lynn]. I’ll bet if you look back far enough, we’d probably be connected somewhere.”

Now Portman is back on stage and singing the songs of her fellow Kentuckian, who had 24 No. 1 country singles and 11 No. 1 albums, a truly groundbreaking country singer and songwriter who became the first country music artist to be featured on the cover of Newsweek. Lynn was nominated 18 times for a Grammy. The 1980 movie about her, Coal Miner’s Daughter, is considered one of the best musical movie bios of all time, and it won Sissy Spacek, who played Loretta, an Oscar.

On Tuesday, March 21, she’ll bring her show to Nashville’s Texas Troubadour theater on Music Valley Drive, across from the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

But don’t call her a Loretta impersonator. “I think some people look at it as kind of an insult to be called a tribute act or an impersonator; I don’t really like those words. I like to think of myself more as a songstress or a vocalist, and an actress.

“I love Loretta. She’s my hero. I do sound like her, and it’s all just for entertainment. Everybody knows I’m not her; I’m not trying to be her, as a person. I’m proud of who I am, but also proud of my ability to portray her.”

She’s been singing Loretta’s songs for years, here and there, but the Always Loretta show is brand new—and it’s now her show. “It’s just kind of getting started,” Portman says. “So far, the shows we’ve done have been sold out.” She is especially excited because, behind her, backing her up on stage, are members of Loretta’s own band, the Coal Miners.

Portman says, unlike a lot of entertainers, she never really dreamed of writing hit songs, recording albums or filling concert halls. And she certainly never dreamed of touring the country as Loretta Lynn, performing with Loretta Lynn’s band. “I never started out thinking, ‘I just want to do Loretta Lynn,” she says. “I loved to sing, but I never sang in front of everyone until I was 19, and I was scared to death.”

She’s written a bunch of songs over the years, even recording her own CD in 2008. “I’ve got notebooks full of stuff; I’ve written a lot. I’m not finished. There are a lot of country songs I’d still like to record. Not to make it big, but just to have my stuff ‘on file’ for my great-grandkids and thereafter, so they can say, ‘This was my memaw’ or whatever, back when she was singing and stuff.”

She also took time off from making music to build a life and raise a family. She still teaches—at a Catholic school near her home, instructing K-through-8 students in music, social studies and “PE, believe it or not. We go to the gym and play.” She also gives riding lessons.

And she continues to carry the torch for her singing idol. She sounds like Loretta, she talks like Loretta, and she looks like Loretta, especially on stage. And right now, Always Loretta is her musical calling.    

“I feel like it’s something that I need to continue,” she says. “I’m not a young spring chicken right out of the gate anymore, but I still have a lot of life in me.”

Spoken, well, just like Loretta might have said it.

—Neil Pond