I was always fascinated by cowboy shows on TV when I was a kid. Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name" series etched very deeply in my mind. I must have watched the series 3 to 4 times. I guess that is the reason why I own so many country and western albums in my LP collection.
When I went hunting for LPs and saw a country and western LP album which I have not owned, I rarely let go the chance to own the LP. This album, Marty Robbins' "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Song" was pickup by me in this manner too.
Marty Robbins (1925 - 1982) is not strictly a country and western singer. He released country and western, pop, rock-and-roll and even Hawaiian songs in his entire recoding career. I owned several C&W and pop albums of Marty Robbins. However, I still prefer his C&W music than others. There was a presence of Latin guitar (I guess so as I am a really a novice in musical instruments) in quite a number of his songs and that made his music quite unique.
This album contains Marty Robbins' signature song "
This album was released in 1959.
Song List:
Side A - Big Iron, Cool Water, Billy the Kid, Hundred and Sixty Acres, They're Hanging Me Tonight, Strawberry Roan
Side B - El Paso, In the Valley, The Master's Call, Running Gun, Down in the Little Valley, Utah Carol
I remember trying to copy the lyrics from the radio but never succeeded because I had to wait for requests.
ReplyDeleteIt was much later when I bought the EP that I finally got all the words. By then the thrill of the song was gone.
Those days, we had a song book where we cut pictures of Elvis, Pat Boone, etc and pasted them all over the pages together with the handwritten lyrics.
El Paso is a very long song indeed. That's why it's called a ballad.
Thanks for the interesting story.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I too tried to copy the lyrics of my favourite songs from the radio. You know how frustrating it was when we were already half way done with a song but had to wait for the radio to play that song again.
Another really long song is, 'American Pie'. By then lyrics were easier to acquire.
ReplyDeleteI only managed 'El Paso' after more than 6 or 7 attempts.
Andy, I have just checked the lyrics of 'American Pie" on the Internet. Wow, it is defintely a long long song!
ReplyDelete