Jimmy Martin Profile Written by Tom Piazza Reissued in Paperback
January 19, 2010
Jimmy MartinEditor's note: In this excerpt from True Adventures With the King of Bluegrass, author Tom Piazza has already convinced Jimmy Martin -- one of the most colorful characters in bluegrass history -- to be interviewed for an Oxford American magazine profile. But first, with a promised bottle of bourbon in tow, Piazza tags along with Martin in the singer's temperamental blue limo, then gives the reader an indelible image of Martin's home in Hermitage, Tenn. A decade after appearing in book form, True Adventures With the King of Bluegrass was published in paperback earlier this year.I grabbed my stuff and approached the limo, the tinted driver's-side window rolled down halfway, and there was Jimmy Martin looking up at me, unsmiling, suspicion in his red and slightly watery eyes, his head as big as a large ham and very jowly, with long grey sideburns and thin grey hair combed back and left a little bit long by the collar of his black nylon windbreaker."Leave your bags in your car," he said. "I gotta do an errand here; you can come with me."By the time I climbed into his passenger seat, Martin was trying to maneuver the limo into a five-point U-turn so that he could get it out of his driveway. He worked the gear shift, which was on the steering column, with dogged concentration and without saying a word. The hood was as big as a queen-sized bed. On the first leg of the turn the limo stalled, and Martin cursed and restarted it with effort. The car stalled twice more before he got through the turn; at one point he spun the wheels and they splattered mud all over my car, which was about twenty feet behind the limo. Finally, the turn was completed and we coasted down the driveway with the engine gurgling uncertainly, and out onto the road.
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