34th CMA Awards

Catching Up With Best Buds

"Travis was on location shooting a film, so I had the acceptance speech all to myself, " recalls Marty with a laugh.

Clutching the coveted trophy, Marty thinks back about his years of touring that started when he was only 12 years old. "What it really did was to make every bad sound system, every smoky honky tonk and every mile of bad road that I had ever traveled up to that point -- they just kind of disappeared. And that award made everything all right."

Travis joined the ceremony via a satellite remote, and the next day the two friends discussed their victory over the phone. "We were proud they nodded to us and gave us a tip of the hat. But the thing our No Hats Tour accomplished at that time is that we drew a lot of young people to country music, a whole different generation of listeners."

The multi-talented Marty is still going full speed ahead. He's co-directing the making of a movie about country music, preparing to produce an album and writing for the soundtrack of Billy Bob Thornton's movie All The Pretty Horses. He's also working on a Johnny Cash compilation project and returning to the studio to make tapes of new songs he's written this year.

Written by Gerry Wood