Marty Robbins (1925–1982) was an American country singer-songwriter from Glendale, Arizona who also raced NASCAR on the side. Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959) — home of El Paso, winner of the first-ever Grammy for Best Country & Western Recording — is one of the great Western records, full stop. Dig into Marty Robbins vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Martin David Robinson was born in Glendale, Arizona on September 26, 1925. He served in the United States Navy during World War II before pursuing a music career. He signed with Columbia Records in the early 1950s and became one of the most commercially successful country artists of the late 1950s and 1960s. His 1959 album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs - featuring the landmark single El Paso - is widely cited as one of the foundational documents of Western-themed country music. El Paso won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1960. He maintained a parallel career as a stock car racer, competing in NASCAR Grand National (now Cup) races throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982. He died of cardiac arrest on December 8, 1982 in Nashville at age 57, six days after a heart operation.
Marty Robbins's sound combines country, country and Western, Western country, traditional country, country pop, gospel, and rockabilly with his distinctive tenor vocal delivery and lyrical content drawing on cowboy and Western themes, romantic ballads, and traditional country songwriting traditions.
Original Columbia Records pressings of the Marty Robbins catalog are widely collected. Multiple anniversary editions, audiophile reissues (Mobile Fidelity, Acoustic Sounds), and the comprehensive Bear Family Records box sets have been released.
Listeners new to Marty Robbins typically start with Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959).
