Roots ‘N’ Blues is a tale of two festivals, one new and one old, one part Bonnaroo and one part Grand Ole Opry. In experience’s corner is Marty Stuart, the country music legend who will be performing Friday with his band, The Fabulous Superlatives.

Marty Stuart has the confidence of a man who knows his identity. He is a classic, blue-collar country music singer through and through, and he knew it well before anyone else. His passion for music overshadowed school and by his 13th birthday he had dropped out to start touring with Lester Flatt, who recognized his talent and served as a father figure to the young Stuart, according to MartyStuart.com.

“I truly had the luxury of training at the feet of a master,” Stuart says. “I grew as a musician and a performer with Lester … He taught me the most important thing is to respect your fans.”

Stuart heeded this; he has never been one to believe his own hype. He says he understands that musicians cannot exist without demand and no one is above the market.

“It’s so easy to be blinded by the bright lights and forget that the fans made all this possible,” Stuart says.

This might sound like a platitude, but Stuart’s musical resume speaks to his sincerity. Behind his flamboyant nudie suits and his flammable pompadour hair is a man who speaks for the salt of the earth and has never forgotten his roots.

Flatt may have been Stuart’s country music father, but Stuart bears far more resemblance to his father-in-law Johnny Cash. Stuart and Cash are two men cut from the same cloth — highly talented, devoutly Christian and deeply conflicted. Marty joined the Man in Black after Flatt’s death in ’79, and both men became lifelong friends, bonding through a shared friction between their faith and their outlaw lifestyle.

“I am absolutely a contradiction,” Stuart says. “We all were. It’s a daily struggle between light and dark.”

Stuart split with Cash in ’86 to pursue a short-lived solo career, which ended in ’87 when Marty was dropped by Columbia Records because of poor album sales.

“That was the darkest period of my life; I was going through a divorce and everything I released didn’t seem to go anywhere,” Stuart says. “But it forced me to sober up, which was truly a blessing.”

Stuart returned to his home in Mississippi, reunited with his old childhood band, the Sullivans, and gradually began working his way up until he got a record deal with MCA and dropped his first hit “Hillbilly Rock.” It was an instant success and reignited Stuart’s career.

“It was like I had finally been accepted into the club,” he says.

Since its release, Marty has had five albums go gold and one platinum. He married his childhood crush and Grand Ole Opry star Connie Smith and has become an Opry curator of original country music, keeping the classic sound alive in an industry that has all but abandoned it. He is a pillar of original country music and, while he is short of seniority at the event by about two decades, he is as close as you can come to ‘roots’ at this festival.