This periodic newsletter commemorates the lives of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story was published last year by the University of Illinois Press, and I’m currently writing Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins. This week marks the anniversary of the deaths of these great entertainers–Marty 26 […]
MARTY ROBBINS BEFORE AND AFTER THE NAVY Here’s a paragraph in my biography draft that I originally placed in the section on Martin as a teenager before he enlisted in the Navy: ***He and his half dozen friends “were trying to have fun,” he said. “We’d choose up sides and have fights with the oranges. […]
MARTY ROBBINS, THE NAME Marty once told Ralph Emery he got the name Marty Robbins from “a Russian kid by the name of Harry Tomichov” [phonetic spelling]. He wanted to change his name “because I didn’t want anybody to know it was me playing. Because I was ashamed. So Harry says why don’t you just […]
RESEARCHING MARTY ROBBINS IN GLENDALE, ARIZONA My sister and I just returned from a great research trip. Kayo and I met people who knew Marty and people who keep his memory alive through the “Friends of Marty Robbins” organization. Thanks to Jo Wenger for arranging a meeting at the Shot of Java coffee shop. She […]
SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAYS On 17 September we remembered the 29 short years of Hank Williams, who was born 85 years ago. On 18 September I celebrated another great year. This Friday, 26 September, we’ll remember Marty Robbins, born in the Arizona desert 83 years ago. Marty’s fans in his hometown of Glendale AZ are having a […]
RAY PRICE AND MEL TILLIS Last week I heard on XM-13 radio that Mel Tillis and Ray Price would be at a fair in Frederick, Maryland, on Sunday. So I emailed Ernie Reed to ask if he would be there with the Statesiders. I met him backstage after their soundcheck and he introduced me to […]
INTERVIEWS In the past two weeks I’ve found four more Marty Robbins band members. All were with the band when Marty died. Larry Hunt, bass player, had a stroke a year ago. I interviewed pianist Jim Hannaford of Nashville and the rhythm-guitar-playing-harmony-singing pair of friends from Ohio, Gary Adams and Mike Cutright. Thanks to Lynn […]
While home in South Dakota a few weeks ago, I attended the Sherwin Linton show at the county fair in Montevideo, Minnesota. I’d seen him and the Cotton Kings several times years ago, when I was an unknown in the audience. Now Faron’s biography has made me important enough to be introduced! Sherwin’s wife, Pam, […]
This is a periodic newsletter on Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story, published last year by the University of Illinois Press, as well as progress on writing Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins. INTERVIEWS Thanks to Jody Nix for putting me in touch with Johnny Bush and to Tom Lipscombe for […]
Marty Robbins didn’t like being called “Mr. Teardrop.” He told an interviewer in 1982, “It always embarrassed me when somebody’d say Mr. Teardrop. Ah, shoo, man, I wanted to fall down and cry, y’know. Because I didn’t like it. Because it embarrassed me. . . . I never had a name for my band. They […]