On This Day in 2007, Porter Wagoner Said His Final Farewell With a Marty Stuart-Produced Classic Country Album

On this day (June 5) in 2007, Porter Wagoner released Wagonmaster, his final album. Produced by Marty Stuart, the album captured how age and illness had changed but not weakened his voice. Moreover, it allowed a legendary figure to go out on a high note. The LP reignited interest in Wagoner and his catalog. It was also his first album to reach the charts in more than two decades.

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Wagoner almost died months before he began working on Wagonmaster. He suffered an abdominal aneurysm and spent two weeks in the hospital in July 2006. As a result, recording a new album wasn’t easy. Stuart, however, gently pushed him forward. Eventually, he felt his voice coming back.

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Stuart’s devotion to country music’s history and traditions shines here. Instead of just helping Wagoner put together an album, he built a sonic museum exhibit. The tracklist of Wagonmaster captures all of the things that brought Wagoner acclaim and adoration over the years. Songs like “Who Knows Right from Wrong” and “My Many Southern Trips” call back to some of Wagoner’s classics. “Brother Harold Dee” caps off the large collections of recitations from the Hall of Famer.

Wagonmaster peaked at No. 63 on the Top Country Albums chart. It was his first LP to reach the chart since 1983, when Viva Porter Wagoner reached No. 48.

Porter Wagoner Healed While Making Wagonmaster

Porter Wagoner and Marty Stuart recalled working on Wagonmaster in a July 2007 interview.

After nearly dying in the summer of 2006, Wagoner found a new frame of mind. “I was real scared about it, and then I prayed a lot, and I finally got to feeling okay,” he said. “I wasn’t afraid anymore. That was a wonderful feeling. It was something I’d never felt before in my life. I got closer to God than I’ve ever been, and then I felt a safeness. It was like okay, if I die, I’m alright.”

This was the state in which Stuart found Wagoner when he began calling him about making an album. After many phone calls, Stuart started coming to Wagoner’s house with guitars and song ideas in hand. Just like any other form of recovery, they took things slowly.

“We started out doing 30 minutes, then the next day it was 40 minutes, and we worked until we got up to an hour,” Wagoner recalled. “My voice started getting stronger, and I started getting better.”

A Legend’s Return

Soon, he was feeling well enough to travel. He and Stuart played an acoustic club show in New York. “Marty and I took two guitars and sat there on two stools,” he recalled. “You could hear a pin drop when we were doing a song, and when we were finished, they’d just tear the house down,” he added. The crowd’s reaction shocked Wagoner.

He didn’t expect anyone but the Grand Ole Opry faithful to care about him or his music. “I knew it was going to be like this. People love you, man,” Stuart told him, unsurprised by the warm reception. About a month after releasing Wagonmaster, he opened for the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden.

Porter Wagoner died in October 2007, months after being properly reintroduced to the world.

Featured Image by Rick Diamond/WireImage