All manner of country-related sounds are bouncing through Nashville this week during the CMA Music Festival, but for Marty Stuart, the ones that are most impactful are the ones rooted in tradition.

"Traditional country music is the music that still melts me and reduces me to tears," Stuart said, standing Wednesday afternoon in RCA Studio B, where so much classic country music was recorded.

Stuart was at RCA Studio B — the place where his wife, Connie Smith, recorded numerous records — to introduce journalists and friends to his upcoming album, Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions. Due out August 24 on Sugar Hill Records, Ghost Train features a few covers along with 11 songs that he wrote or co-wrote. There's a duet with Smith, a recitation called "Porter Wagoner's Grave" and a strong and solemn tune called "Hangman" that Stuart wrote with Johnny Cash four days before Cash's death.

The recordings provided Stuart will some full circle moments: His first-ever recording sessions came at RCA Studio B, when he was a teenage mandolin player working for Lester Flatt.

Wednesday, the assembled listeners included Smith, members of Stuart's Fabulous Superlatives band, the Oak Ridge Boys' Duane Allen and pedal steel guitar great Ralph Mooney, whose instantly identifiable style graces four of the album's songs, including an instrumental take on his co-written Ray Price smash, "Crazy Arms."

By Peter Cooper