Marty Stuart - In Concert

Marty Stuart bolts onstage in a flash of black and gold glitter, a silver concho belt slung enticingly low over denim-molded hips, all set to build a bridge between a glorious hillbilly past and today's hot new breed of country. "I came here to do my own personal honky tonkin' tonight," he shouts to a jam-packed house at the Konocti Harbor Resort and Spa, and proceeded to strut and whirl around the stage to rollicking hits such as "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'," "Kiss Me, I'm Gone," and "Western Girls."

Bronzed from jet-skiing, he tells the crowd he hasn't even brought along a set list. "We figured we'd just have fun and y'all would, too," he says. "Ya wanna hear the worst song I ever wrote?" Dark eyes crinkling with mirth, he smiles his way through a ditty about the Wal-Mart woman whom "he knows by what's in her cart and loves down deep in his heart."

He gently shushes someone as he begins reciting the haunting tale of Lefty Frizzell's "Long Black Veil," then hurls himself into a fevered performance of "Tempted." Drawing frenzied screams when he undulates his hips, he whirls around to face the screamers with an impish laugh.

By show's end, people are dancing between the tables as he kicks into overdrive with "Now That's Country," and fans the fire he'd set in their hearts with a rousing "Hillbilly Rock."

And then, with an unearthy flash and scintillating thump, it's over. He's done what he came to do--strengthen the bridge between country's past and its future and doing so with talent, style, good humor and tight jeans.

By Marianne Horner