Martha "Scotty" Scott Stey
Martha “Scotty” Scott Stey, is an American mandolinist, guitarist, and singer based in Alaska. She was raised in Colorado and moved to Bethel, Alaska, where she joined the Beat Around the Bush Band on her arrival. The all-woman group of four or five members, including Marty Nerenstone, Galen Paine, Lynn Conant, and Elizabeth Mayock, played mandolin, guitar, banjo and washtub bass. They performed in Bethel and in villages along the Kuskokwim River, served as the house band for the local television show River City Review and was known for rewriting popular songs with Bethel themes. She later named a band of hers the Delta Darlin's. She has lived in Juneau since 2000. There she and her husband, Jim Stey, help host the folk and acoustic program Mudlark Sampler on public radio station KTOO, and they perform together as the duo Don't Go Stey, which played the 2025 Alaska Folk Festival. Her letters to the Women in Bluegrass newsletter described her road trips and her second thoughts about the Delta Darlin's name, whose gendered connotation she noticed after reading the newsletter.
In the newsletter
Wrote
- Alaska to New England: Road-Tripping with Martha Scott (No. 6) printed “Martha Scott” [sic]
- RAG, MAMA, RAG...: Moment of Awareness (No. 9) printed “Martha "Scotty" Scott” [sic]