THE COWBOY IN THE CONTINENTAL SUIT

“The Cowboy in the Continental Suit” hit the charts in June 1964 and climbed to number three. Marty Robbins had worn a European-cut continental suit during a movie premier, and a newspaper called him “the cowboy in the continental suit.” Marty thought that was a neat title for a song. “I have to be inspired to write,” he said, “and that inspired me to write a song. It didn’t take me very long.” Marty described the song: “He’s dressed in a continental suit, and he comes to ride this big buckskin called the Brute. No one has ever ridden this horse, and anyone that can ride him gets a thousand bucks. And he opens the gate, and this buckskin comes running out, and he grabs him around the neck, and pulls himself up on the back of this buckskin, and rides him.” The horse was ashamed to have been ridden by a cowboy in a continental suit. (more…)

“LIVE FAST, LOVE HARD, DIE YOUNG” — 55 YEARS OLD
Faron Young achieved his first number one Billboard hit this week in 1955. It was a busy year. He had become the Young Sheriff with his Country Deputies in May, he was getting ready to go to Hollywood to make his first movie, Hidden Guns, and he and Hilda would have their first child in August. About writing “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young,” Joe Allison told me he’d watched a bad “B” gangster movie in which John Derek kept saying, “I want to die young and leave a good-looking corpse.”  Joe told me, “It struck me as being a good idea for a song, so I wrote it. I didn’t write it for anybody, but when Ken Nelson heard it, he said, ‘We’ll do that with Faron Young.'” Faron told Ralph Emery, “This was a tune I detested. Ken Nelson made me record this song. I put it out and it was a big, big hit. Then I got to likin’ it.” (more…)