Marty Robbins

[TC Chris]

At lunchtime, I've been reading a history of New Mexico after the Santa Fe trip this fall. Today there were many references to El Paso, right across the state line, and that immediately put me in mind of the wonderful Marty Robbins song of that name. "Once in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl." I've got a weakness for Marty Robbins, who had a good voice and good taste in songs. So I put on the headphones and listened to it (when it comes to music, the computer is our friend). And then I had to hear "Don't Worry About Me." Wow. And then it was "Singin' the Blues." This is just grand popular music.

Have a listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWm5WErkffQ

This morning there was a public radio item about a new movie about Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, who wrote some of our most enduring songs. It would have been enough to have produced just one of their tunes of the magnitude of "Where or When" but when you look at a list, it's filled with one big hit after another. And by "big hit," I don't mean songs that have been performed by multiple artists for decades, not the here today, gone tomorrow fluff of most contemporary music.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

When I was a lot younger, and was hauling grain, the only way the wife and I got to spend much time together is if she rode with me to the river. We had a little flea-power AM radio station in Washington, Indiana WAMW/WFML which played similcast country music. Marty Robbins had a song out that was popular "Try A Little Tenderness". We put many a quarter in the old Rowe juke box at the American Legion for that song.....

IT was one of Marty Robbins' better belly-rubbers. The wife LOVED that song, if you get my drift....

Marty was a pretty fair piano player. Do you remember his TV show? He had a checkerboard grand he played. He was one of the greats, no doubt....

[William]

El Paso was probably my step-dads favorite song. One could hear him quietly singing it as he went about what every he was doing.

Bill

[electra225]

Two problems with "El Paso". It was almost ten minutes long and it was massively over-played. My dad like it, too, so we played it ad nauseum at his barn dances. Almost every country artist covered that song, for years.

[TC Chris]

Now there's an argument for listening to lots of different music.... Long ago, when I listened to commercial radio, it was "top 40" playlists. A new tune would come along and it would be so cool for about a week. Then it would get old. Sometimes in the spring, somebody will crank up a "classic rock" station. It's the same 20-tune playlist, forever. I'm always wondering how people can listen to the same set of tunes for years.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

When we lived in Missouri, there was a little fleapower FM station in town, 97.1 "The Lake". I called them 97.1 "The Ad" because they played canned top-40 country with 42 minutes of commercials per hour. The same music and the same ads, day after day, year after year. They hired a guy to work Friday evenings and host a three-hour classic country music program, sponsored by a local lumber yard. His name was Williams and his program may arguably have been the best country music program I had heard since Bill Robinson was on WIRE in the 1970's. Williams like album cuts and flip sides. He didn't really play any "popular" songs or ones you typically heard on the radio. He passed away suddenly and that show was done. He played a lot of Marty Robbins, Hank Thompson and Asleep AT The Wheel.

[danrclem]

Marty Robbins had a great voice, and El Paso was a great song. Add Grady Martin playing guitar on it and it was a can't miss song.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

My favorite Marty Robbins song is his number one
hit: "A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)".

If you recorded for Columbia Records, you had great A&R and technical
recording skills to bring your singing talent to bloom.
Superb arranger Ray Coniff reportedly scored this production.

This song was probably a successful cross-over b/t Rock and Roll
and Country and Western genres.

Second fave is definitely "El Paso".