Marty Stuart has made a historic donation to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The 65-year-old donated his entire collection of artifacts, more than 22,000 items, making it the largest private assemblage of country music artifacts in the world, joining the world’s largest public collection held by the museum.

The numerous items Stuart donated include more than 1000 stage wear and clothing items, 100 instruments, 50 original song manuscripts, plus items from Country Music Hall of Fame members Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Charley Pride, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and more, plus his expansive collection of his own photographs.

“This is a top of the world moment for me,” Stuart says of the donation. “To have my collection live alongside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is monumental, to be a part of a ceremony and witness the Congress of Country Music and its people formally welcomed into the family of country music is a spiritual high. And, to share such a gathering with family and friends from both Nashville, as well as Mississippi, is just the best. Such a day only comes along once in a lifetime.

Many of Stuart’s items will be on display as part of the museum’s permanent exhibition, Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present, which takes visitors chronologically through the history of country music. Some items will also be donated as part of Stuart’s Congress of Country Music, in his own hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

At a ceremony announcing the donation, Country Music Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young read an excerpt of an essay Stuart wrote when he was 11 years old, which said in part, “A musician is what I have been wanting to be. That is my true goal for life, and I hope to accomplish this goal and do it well because music will be my love forever.”

“Marty Stuart has fulfilled those childhood dreams many times over. Today, he is making our dreams come true, with the crucial help of two key donors,” said Young. “We’re incredibly grateful for Marty’s philanthropy — and a lead gift from the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation with major support from Loretta and Jeff Clarke — for enabling the museum to safeguard and share this historic collection in perpetuity. We’re here to celebrate this remarkable addition to our collection, revel in Marty’s extraordinary foresight and collecting skill, and rejoice in a new chapter for this museum.”

As part of the ceremony, Stuart was also honored with performances by Chapel Hart with Charlie Worsham, Vince Gill and Chris Stapleton.

“I’ve known Marty for 51 years,” Gill said. “I’ll never forget, it was Hugo, Oklahoma, at a bluegrass festival back there where I’m from. We were playing, and Marty was playing with Lester [Scruggs]. I saw him walk off the bus. He had a hat on, carrying a mandolin case, pointy-toed boots. I said, ‘There goes a rock star.’  At 15, or however old we were.

“What I’ve always heard about Marty is …they always would say that Marty was born in the wrong time,” he continued. “Marty should have been born a generation prior to this. No he shouldn’t. He was born in just the right time, ’cause we needed him.”

Find more information on Stuart’s generous donation here.

Photo Credit: Jason Kempin and John Shearer/Getty Images for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum