This periodic newsletter commemorates the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published in 2007 by the University of Illinois Press, and the publication goal for Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins is 2012. Today I completed the first draft of Marty’s biography–30 chapters. I’ll take […]
MARTY ROBBINS, WEBB PIERCE, AND CARL SMITH IN BUFFALO GUN Marty narrates this 1956 movie, beginning with, “That there’s Webb Pierce, and that’s Carl Smith, and that’s me, Marty Robbins. Sure can’t figure out why but we’re all in–” and the Jordanaires start singing “Buffalo Gun.” At the end of the song, narrator Marty says, […]
MARTY ROBBINS AND RICHARD CHILDRESSI sometimes describe biography writing as fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. For me, it’s pure excitement whenever a piece snaps into place. I experienced the feeling recently when working on the chapter about Marty’s 1974 NASCAR races. I had just described his career-high fifth place finish at Michigan and […]
THE CHRISTMAS ALBUMS OF FARON YOUNG AND MARTY ROBBINS Faron Young recorded an album of Christmas songs in 1979 for television sales. I couldn’t find a photo of the cover of A Christmas Card From Faron, perhaps because it was recorded for a private label and is rare. The album was reissued twice, as Silver […]
This week marks the anniversary of when we lost Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Marty died of a heart attack on December 8, 1982, at age 57, and Faron died of a self-inflicted bullet wound on December 10, 1996, at age 64. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published in 2007 by the University […]
“EL PASO” IS FIFTY YEARS OLD For the past two months I’ve been working on Marty Robbins chapters that talk about “El Paso” and the gunfighter ballads. Then one day I was shocked to realize this was FIFTY years go. I’m always a decade behind, and I’d thought it was forty years. Ranger Doug Green […]
MARTY ROBBINS WRITING “TWO LITTLE BOYS” I just finished the section of Marty’s biography where Hawkshaw Hawkins was killed in the plane crash with Patsy Cline in 1963, and I thought newsletter readers would enjoy the story of Marty writing a song in Hawk’s memory. Hawkshaw and his wife, Jean Shepard, had named their first […]
Faron recorded “Goin’ Steady” in October 1952, a month before leaving Nashville for the Army. He’d written the song while touring with Hank Snow. He used the melody of Claude King’s “She Knows Why,” and he received advice on the lyrics from Hubert Long (his manager) and Hillous Butrum (Snow’s frontman). The song went into the […]
This periodic newsletter commemorates the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published in 2007 by the University of Illinois Press, and the publication goal for Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins is 2012. I’ve just finished writing chapter twelve and have reached the end […]
THE BIRTH OF MARTIN DAVID ROBINSON “Born in the heat of the desert….” Eighty-four years ago this past Saturday night, twins Martin and Mamie were born in a shack (erected by their father and pregnant mother) in the desert north of Glendale, Arizona. Their older sister, Lillie, told the story this way: “One morning Grandma […]