Artist: Marty Robbins
Album: Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Year: 1959
I thought Robbins was an artist unfamiliar to me, but I recognized a number of the songs on this album. Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs is probably best described as "cowboy music." You can imagine this stuff as the soundtrack to a Western, and most of the lyrics read as plots to those sorts of films.
Robbins has a rich and booming yet easy-going voice which lends itself well to this material. The most compelling tunes here are the ones with the most tuneful melodies. "Big Iron" tells the winsome tale of a duel between an Arizona ranger and an outlaw named "Texas Red." "El Paso" is probably the most famous song on this album, a Latin-tinged tune where the narrator shoots an outlaw dead to win the hand of a mysterious Mexican girl, only to become an outlaw himself. The ringing guitar sound on "The Hanging Tree" (my favorite on the album) is sublime and sounds like some of the stuff The Byrds would go on to incorporate a few years later.
I would probably never voluntarily listen to this music outside of this project, but these are good songs with good stories, well-sung by an affable performer. Thumbs up.
Rating: Worth a listen
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