Marty Robbins and a Cowboy Classic

This one's for the cowboys! Steve and Wheels look back on one of the biggest records of the late 50s and early 60s Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins. Take a trip back in time with one of the best story song records in the history of western music!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

The I Drag with Hank podcast is back. We're so excited to be back. We've had a lot of fun uh doing this podcast, but we had to take some time and kind of think about what we were gonna do next and had some other stuff come up, but we're back in the back in the saddle again. And uh quite literally, we're gonna be doing some Western Cowboy music tonight, which I'm pretty excited about talking about. Also excited to share a drink with my friend, the guitar man, our pal Steve Miller's here. What's going on, buddy?

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Hey man, it's good to be back here again with you. I've uh I've had the itch to jump back in and talk to our uh listeners for quite a while now. So I'm really glad we could get together tonight. And uh we have got one of the coolest albums I can think of to kind of jump back into the uh world of podcasting here. And uh I think one of our both of our favorite artists, Marty Robinson. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Right? Absolutely. We're gonna talk some Marty Robbins music tonight, and we're gonna talk a little bit about beverages tonight, too.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

I uh you should lead with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, well, you know, that's part of it, right? Because that's what we're doing. We're where I drank with Hank. So let's talk about what we're drinking first. Um, what I'm drinking tonight is probably not inspired by, but it has shares the name of my favorite all-time film. I'm doing a Godfather tonight.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

The Godfather. And honestly, that's actually, you know, a little wormhole here we'll go down. But you know, one of the great actors who was in The Godfather just passed away this week, Robert Duval. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Loved Robert Duval, but was also, by the way, a good tie-in here, big fan of country music, big fan of Roots music, close personal friend of a guy we idolized, Marty Stewart, and the Fabulous Superlatives. In fact, the last time he was seen in public was at a Marty Stewart and the Fabulous Superlatives concert about three months ago. Yeah, there you go. Neat to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

And come on, lonesome dove.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Right, right. And what a life at age 95. So, and if you need a conciliary, I don't think they get any better than Tom. So R.I.P. to Robert Dufal, one of the best actors of all time. And uh cool to be able to bust out some. The neat thing about this drink is it features amaretto, right? So that is one of those things that like one of the very first drink that I ever had in a bar when I'm like 21 years old, I was like, Can you make me Amaretto Sour? Because there's like that much, you know, that kids know how to drink. And I could drink an Amaretto Sour and be fine and feel fine about it. But like I'm glad that my my palate has advanced a little bit. Let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

I just, you know, I'm sorry, point point of order, sir. I I just want to put something to bed here. You tried to tell me that one of the first drinks you had in the bar didn't happen until you were 21. Well, I'm struggling with that just a little. Legally. I'm just gonna leave that there.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I would just say legally, that's what I would say. I I've uh I shared some drinks much uh sooner than 21.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

We don't condone that.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

No, well we get it's just part of the culture around here, anyways. Anyways, let's right. Let's keep on chatting a little bit about uh this great Western music that we're about to be inspired with. Oh, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

So you're so busy godfathering.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I know. I got so excited about uh about Tom and the movie and Robert Duvall and Lonesome Dove. There was a lot to talk about. But anyway, what do you got? What are you drinking over there, pal?

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Well, I'm telling you, I mean, the last podcast we did, I I think that was a Dale Watson one, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

And so uh to honor Dale Watson, I was drinking Lone Star beer that night. I have uh jumped back fully into uh my first love of all things whiskies. And tonight, um, I'm just instead of a fancy cocktail, I'm just having a really, really awesome uh Angel's Envy rye. Nice, and I love it because it's a rye that is aged in a rum cask, which gives it just a little bit of a sweetness to it, but not too much. And uh it's just very easy to drink, it's great on the old vocal cords and uh really, really satisfying whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So and speaking of the old vocal cords, I gotta tell you that this this friend of mine who happens to be a badass singer gave me the probably the best tip I've ever had for my vocal cords in my life, which is throat coat tea. So I just you know, I'm we're not gonna resort to the throat coat tea tonight, but I'm so thankful that you gave me that tip because uh because there's been many, many times in over the course of the last couple of months where you know winter in where we are in Wisconsin, not so much fun. Uh throw coat tea really saved me over the holidays. So thanks for the help.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

If you got to be on the microphone like several nights in a row or something, or especially if you got a little bit of a cold, um, you know, uh that is uh that is a vocalist little secret weapon right there. Everybody thinks they're they're drinking something in that uh in that cup, and and all it really is is throat coat tea.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Throat coat tea, yeah. That's right. And there's I mean, I bet they sell a lot of throat coat tea in Nashville, Tennessee. That's what I'll say about that. So let's get into, by the way, um our our album of of today, which is uh so it was so fun to give this one a spin today. Absolutely it was it was a blast to be able to enjoy this one front to back. And I've got this one, it's one of the few that we've talked about so far that I have on vinyl. So I was able to put the turntable on and flip it over today, and it was just a great experience to be able to be transported back in time with the gunfighter ballads and trail songs from 1959. I've I have the repress of it, which came out about five, six years ago, from a great label called Real Gone Music. If you haven't looked up the guys and gals that produce Real Gone Music, they're amazing. They're one of their mainstays is uh classic country music, and then they also do a lot of Christmas tunes. They repress a lot of Christmas albums. So I've I have I have this one on a smoky uh silver vinyl from the from the original mono tapes, and it's a really awesome listen.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Well, I know the the original album was released uh around September of 1959, as you say, and and uh I I've got a version of it. I don't know if it's uh you know uh when it was actually pressed, but it's the old one with the red uh red old classic and yeah, you know, the cowboy and the classic Columbia label too on the record.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Six shooter. Yep, exactly. I mean, and this, I think this I think do you think it's safe to say this is the most iconic Marty Robbins record? Because I think this is probably it.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

I mean, I know that my woman, my woman, my wife sold more copies later for him, but I think it probably is um when you come he is crossed over from one different type of music to the other, but yeah, but I think if you think of Marty Robbins and you know anything at all about him, you know, the first song that pops into your head's Al Paso.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

That's right, every every time, yeah. Which is which and so there's an interesting story about this this album. And I so I was looking up a lot of stuff today, talking about this, uh thinking about talking about this record. And um one of the things that struck me is that even in the studio, even though it was so long, they they they still the album cut of El Paso isn't the full length.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I think it's four seventeen.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

The original cut was four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, and then they cut it down a little bit, not a lot, but a little for the record. And then then the the actual original, like full version, never saw the light of day until the CD reissue of this album, which I think was in the late 90s. So that sounds right. And they could and they brought it back from the uh they brought it back in true mono style, which is really cool. By the way, props to the Beatles for making uh making mono sounds on digital records sound really cool again. There you go. But uh, but man, I didn't I didn't even know. Like obviously they cut it for radio, right? Because the radio version of the song was one of the first ones that ever had to be flipped over. They flipped it over at 245. So the side A was 245, and then side B was a real short way to finish the song.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

And that's like kiss of death in radio, right? You know, flipping it the dead space or trying to, you know, add lid something while you're flipping a record over.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Right. It's funny because there's a story, it's a really funny story. Um, we we talk about uh Willie Nelson a lot on the show because Willie's my my all-time favorite and you love him too. And uh Willie was a DJ, and he was doing he was down in Texas doing a doing a DJ shift, and he talked about playing this record from Marty Robbins, and they didn't know how to fill the time between flipping the record. So they had this like track of like horse clomping that they would play over the top of the record while it ended, and then like the horses would just clomp for a little bit, and then they flip the record over and they'd keep playing it.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Kind of reminds you of a certain Monty Python film, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I think so, yeah. No, but you know, and the the cool thing about this record is um we talk about it a lot on the on the podcast here.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Story songs and country music, they're rare, and now these days it sucks that they don't exist as much as they used to, and uh this record is all story all the time.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

It's chocked full of stories, and it's all old Western cowboy stories. And um, you know, certainly El Paso was was just the tip of the iceberg there. But El Paso put him on the map, right? I mean, that went number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in in 1960, won him a Grammy Award for the best country western recording in 61.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Man, no kidding.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

But I'll tell you what, I'll I'll you know, tell me what your favorite song. Let's do our usual shtick here. What was your favorite song off the album? I loved El Paso, but I've got another one for that.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, me too, me too. I love that one too. But you know, I I'm gonna go ahead and just give you the obvious choice because it is my favorite. It's one it's one of it's I'd put it in my Mount Rushmore country music songs. Big Iron is one of my all-time favorite country music songs, period. So that's my favorite song.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Oh, he might have gone on a living, but he made one fatal slip when he tried to match the ranger with a big iron on his hip. Big iron on his hip.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

And um, yeah, I I think honestly, probably the other one is Billy the Kid.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Just like poor Billy, they wander astray. They'll lose their lives in the very same way.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

I I have to agree with you about Big Iron. It's one of my favorite all-time cowboy songs.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Great story in that one.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

But I also uh, and it was a cover, but I really loved his Sons of the Pioneers cover at Cool Waterhouse.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, yep. Great, great story.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

And it just really reinforced to me that authentic cowboy atmosphere that this album was all about.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

That's right, exactly. And you know, and on this uh on the podcast here, we also like to give credit to the players because the players make all the difference in the world when it comes to the comes to the albums. How about Grady Martin, man? I like is there a better intro? I mean, there we so we were talking about that the other day. Um, I was talking about that with there's a guy who does a great YouTube podcast, uh the Drifting Cowboy Podcast, another podcast I love. Uh his name's Dylan Weldon, he lives in Nashville. Um, I had a chance to meet him at when I was in Nashville, and we were talking about the intro on Stand By Your Man as potentially the best intro that's ever been done. Uh like in country music history for an instrumental instrumental intro. I would say maybe the guitar intro on Satin Sheets by Genie Pruitt might be even better. But when it comes to guitar work though, like other than maybe Willie and Redheaded Stranger, Grady Martin on El Paso might be the my favorite thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Yeah, I mean, and you just know anybody anybody playing a country song on guitar whose first name is Grady has got to be no I mean and well, and it's so funny because you know you and I had the had the pleasure a couple of years ago, I think it was a couple years ago, of seeing Tracy Byrd, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, and they and they got and there's so much influence into that Marty Robbins sound that even some of the stuff he played, like in the late 90s and had big hits with, had that Marty Robbins guitar style, which is all Grady Martin. So like I just I just love the fact that that music just keeps on going.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Well, and and and the other is I I think you and I went to see Marty Stewart and the Superlatives uh about a year or two ago.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yep, Crystal Grand in the Dells, yep.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Right, the Crystal Grand. And do you remember their amazing cover of El Paso?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

One of my favorite things was I mean, it was just and if you and by the way, if you want to hear a great mashup, and and and we're not big mashup people here around here, but it's true. The Opry put out an album for celebrate their 100th anniversary, and there's a mash-up version of Marty Robbins on the on the Opry, and then it's closed with Marty Stewart on the Opry doing it. It's kind of like a a little bit of a virtual duet type thing. It turned out magnificent. So give that a spin if you get a chance. But but uh, you know, I think we've talked about it enough. Let's uh can we get a little sample of El Paso right now? Are you cool with that?

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Absolutely, yeah. You gotta do it.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso. I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Well, now that you heard El Paso and the great song that that is, I I just kind of want to dive in with you because I think I think we gotta talk a little bit more. You mentioned them earlier, and I I want to dive in a little further on Sons of the Pioneers and that cover of Cool Water. I mean, I just I I don't know like Sons of the Pioneers, they don't get enough credit for the being the trendsetters that they were.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

No, no, not at all. And they were such amazing uh vocalists and their harmonies. I mean, they were they were really kind of you know, Gene Autry gets that that moniker of the singing cowboy, but those the pioneers were really the to me the original singing cowboys. That's right. That's that's I mean, I feel that strongly about it. I think they just their harmonies just they're there's they were so relaxed and casual, and and it was so full of prose and storytelling, and it just made you feel like you're sitting on the horse riding right along the trail with them.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

That's true, that's true. And and to give credence to that a little bit more, uh, when they were recording the highwayman record, uh, Willie and Wayland and Chris and Johnny, they had um Gene Autry in the studio with him for a little bit of just hanging out time, and uh, which was really neat to see those guys turn into cowboy kids again, but they talked a lot about the Sons of the Pioneers, even with him, and he had agreed that without them he wouldn't have been as big a star as he was. So again, just monster credit. And when it comes to covers, this is that's another one of the things that so this that cover here, there's not a lot of covers that are happening in the late 50s. You know what I mean? Like it's just not especially not in country music. There's a lot of original songs, and that's all.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

I mean, think of it. At the time it was people that owned publishing companies, right? A lot of country stars owned publishing companies.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

And they just hired guys like Willie Nelson to sit in office and sit there and write songs.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yeah, that's how long before they were stars in their own right.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

No joke. Um, yeah, but man, oh man, what a wonderful opportunity here.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

So um the other thing I just wanted to point out real quick, and and I think you know, this has got a little bit of a similarity to some of the other albums we talked about as concept albums like the Ray Charles one and others. Yes. Um, but we talked about how versatile artists like these were. And if you think about it, you know, in the mid-1950s, before this album came out, you know, Marty had already established himself as a pretty versatile hitmaker, right? I mean, he came out with I'll Go On Alone in 1953, and of course, you know, a classic, you know, You better bring it up, you better bring it up and a pink incarnation, right? I mean, that that's your classic teen idol rock and roller almost for the city.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Honestly, still, honestly, still one of my favorite songs. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

That was a full two years before the Gunfighter album came out, and uh, you know, that was 1957 with uh a white sport coat. That's right. Um Marty Robbins was really comfortable crossing those stylistic borders. He covered some rockabilly, he did some pop ballads, he did some gospel, and of course, he did traditional country. And I think to me, that's the flexibility that gave him that commercial leverage um to pursue kind of a passion project like Western story songs, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:43

No, no kidding, and to and and the level of respect that he had among his peers and among the folks that came up after him is really something that I find really interesting and fun because we know now that Merle Haggard wrote Today I Started Loving You Again with the intention of pitching it to Marty Robbins. Merle recorded it himself, and then it became such a big hit that Marty did it later. But there's a really cool clip of the two of them doing it together, and it's like, man.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Now, was that on the Johnny Cash show where they did it together?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

They did it together on one of the Ralph Emery shows.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Ralph Emery shows. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yep. And uh, and they talked and you know, in the whole interview with with Marty and Merle, Merle just gushes over how much he loved Marty and how much he loves cowboy music. So he he talks about this album in specific a lot and says that Big Iron is his favorite song. So I mean, it's just kind of neat to hear the respect, and uh, and it's also kind of cool. I wanted to bring this up too, that these songs are timeless. We talk about that a lot, but um, there's a there's a couple of young kids that I follow that you guys should follow too. Um, Jack and Davis Reed are their names. They are the grandsons of the Statler brothers.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Yes, and yes, I have seen some of their reels lately.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

They are magnificent on Instagram, and they recently did Big Iron together, and it's great.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

So I haven't heard their version of Big Iron, it's really, really good thing now, right? I mean, the offspring of the big artists are kind of going out there and you know digging up the cowboy songs, it's cool. Just kind of tried to keep their legacy alive of their parents. I mean, look at you know, uh the the Staller brothers uh kids are just kind of the kids, I say they're grown adults or grown men, but um, but I mean that's just the latest one, right? I mean, how long have Ben and Noel Haggard been out there doing Merle stuff and Willie's son?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, I mean, yeah, and like you know, and Robin.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

And if you close your eyes, it's like listening to young versions of Merle and Willie.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

It's crazy. I mean, and I even I even saw a video the other day of a guy who doesn't perform all that often anymore, but I love him. His name's Robin Young, he's Far and Young's son, and he did some great like great covers of the of the great fair fair and young songs.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Real quick, what's your favorite Far and Young song?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Oh, goodness. Um, Leaving and Saying Goodbye probably is right there. Or uh Your Time's Comin' is pretty good. Or Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Uh pretty good. That's three. Come on, you're cheating. I was gonna say going steady.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Oh, okay, but I I gotta be honest with you. Um I I I I think I think three days is really good.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

I uh I I I don't know. There's just too many.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

I know. I'm sorry, I kind of threw us way off track there, but you said fair and young, and I dig a lot of fair and young.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Well, we can yeah, we can talk fair and young.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

We'll have to do a fair and young album.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Wouldn't that be fun to do yeah, especially especially like some of his later stuff, maybe one of his Mercury albums from like the late 60s or 70s. Wind me up release, that kind of stuff. Four in the morning.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you what. Um, the other thing that I really liked, and just going back to the gunfighter album.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Which is where we should have been the whole time, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Right, you know, so I mean you need to learn to keep me uh reeled in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, you're good. That's what happens when we're drinking.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

But I'll tell you what, you know, it it has another thing in common with a lot of the other albums we've uh talked about so far, and and it it's just how much it was, you know, the complete 180 of the smooth Nashville sound that was hot at the time, right? I mean, you know, this wasn't just another country record. This was like a bold artistic statement at a time when Nashville just kept moving more and more towards that smoother Nashville sound like crooning. And instead of doing that and what doing what everybody else was doing, you know, Marty Robinson said he leaned into you know um sparse arrangements, he leaned a lot into the Spanish guitar on here and that whole cinematic storytelling thing. And that's what made this thing so unique.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

It is so cool. I mean, this record, this record is in the Library of Congress. Like, think about that. This record is preserved forever because it's an important piece of American history. There's not many albums we've talked about on this show that that fit that bill. And the the other thing I want I want to just briefly mention about this is uh this was recorded in a day. Eight hours, one studio, same musicians on every take. Can you imagine? You cut a masterpiece in a day. Like that's you can't do that anymore. In in 2026, we cut one track via a computer with 37 pieces, and it takes all day to do one.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Yeah. And they're still auto-correcting all the time, yeah. Doing everything that takes all the authenticity straight out.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

And Marty Robinson His crew are like, nah, just you know, give us some waters, let's get after it. We'll cut this in a day. I'm like, What?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

It's just it's uh it it is honestly mind blowing how good the production on this album is. And that also, by the way, we should we should talk about that one really quick. Uh how good the studios used to be.

unknown 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Because man, the sounds of the records that would come out. You can't beat them.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

I I'll say this if you've never toured RCA Studio B in Nashville, that's right. If you're any kind of music historian or fan of old Western or old, you know, early rock and roll stuff, as in like early Elvis stuff. Man. Um, you know, well, I guess early Elvis would be Sun Records, but I mean kind of a little bit later Elvis.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

No, but most of most of your early 50s Elvis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

But it but you know, that studio has got so much energy in it to this day, just walking into that room. And if you're completely quiet in there, I mean you can almost still hear a pin drop, just the acoustics in there.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Incredible. Incredible. Um, sitting by Floyd Kramer's piano.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

I mean, come on, right? So fun. Anyway, we're uh I just I just love the fact that we were able to get back together again and talk about this great record.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

And I know we've gone a little long, so we'll wrap it up. But I just I just think it's really cool that we've been able to spend some time talking about authentic country music. That's what we do here on the IDRAK with Hank podcast. And we hope you enjoy it. If you do, tell your friends, give us a like, give us a subscribe, check this, check us out on all the platforms, and uh, you know, we'll be a we'll hopefully be a little more consistent and maybe a little less drunk next time.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Uh well, maybe, maybe. But do me one more favor. Yeah um before we go, why don't you take our listeners out with a little bit of big iron? We've talked so much about that song. You know, I know you've got a little El Paso in there, but I I think you just gotta, I think you gotta you gotta give him his due with that one.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yep, no doubt about that. Thanks for the music, Marty. It's the I Drank with Hank podcast.