The Essential Marty Robbins (Rm) (2CD) [Best of, Original recording remastered]

Robbins' musical legacy is often popularly pinned to his nostalgic song of the West, "El Paso," but over a 30-year recording career he waxed an astounding variety of honky-tonk, pop, blues, rockabilly, and standards. He moved mixed-up his core country and western sounds to jazz, tin-pan alley and Hawaiian influences. It's nearly incomprehensible how one person could sound so at home among the steel twang of honky-tonk ("I'll Go Alone"), hillbilly rock and blues ("That's All Right" "Singing the Blues" "Knee Deep in the Blues" "I Walk Alone"), sophisticated '50s teen ballads ("Mister Teardrop" "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)"), and of course his beloved Westerns ("The Hanging Tree" "El Paso" "Big Iron"), but Robbins made it seem effortless.

What's particularly impressive is that Robbins wasn't a chameleon who reinvented himself with the style-of-the-day, he was a renaissance man whose singular style fit different genres with remarkable authority. In isolation, any one of these tracks seems to define Robbins' essence, but taken together, it's clear what a versatile singer and songwriter he was. After conquering the country and pop charts he added a Latin flavor with his 1962 original "Devil Woman" and a bit of New Orleans rock 'n' roll with "Ruby Ann," only to return to his roots with the countrypolitan "Cigarettes and Coffee Blues" and yodeling honky-tonk of "Begging to You." Throughout the '60s he zigzagged back and forth from genre to genre, penning hit originals (including a prequel and post-modern sequel to El Paso, "Faleena (From El Paso)" and "El Paso City," respectively) and cherry-picking songs from up-and-coming songwriters like Gordon Lightfoot.

Robbins' hit-making continued into the '70s, with a short stint on Decca followed by a successful return to Columbia, including new originals and interestingly selected covers, such as Connie Francis' "Among My Souvenirs" and Dean Martin's late-50s "Return to Me" Robbins closed out his career with the 1983 top-ten single, "Honky Tonk Man," completing a' catalog far too rich to be thoroughly anthologized on two discs.

Though one can point to missing sides (including top-charting hits and his Hawaiian sides for starters), the Essential series is more about capturing the essence of an artist's work than simply reciting their greatest hits. In this, these discs perform well. The out-of-print box set "The Essential Marty Robbins: 1951-1982" offers a slightly broader 50-track overview, and individual original album and genre reissues provide fans deeper views into particular aspects of Robbins' career, but as a roadmap to Robbins' career (or just a terrifically pleasant listening experience), this double-disc set gets top marks. [©2005 hyperbolium dot com]

This is a nice way to get most of Marty's highlights throughout his career at a relatively cheap price. The problem with this compilation & the others is that they leave off far too many Top 10 Country hits. For example, where's "It's Your World"? That single went to #3, and it even went to #51 on the Pop charts, yet it's curiously absent here. There are also several Top 100 Pop hits missing. Maybe the folks putting these collections together should look at Joel Whitburn's books now and again! My feeling is that if you're doing an "essential" collection by a country artist, you should include at least all of their Top 10 Country hits & Top 40 Pop hits. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is. Anyway...this is actually a pretty decent set if you enjoy Mr. Robbins' work but don't really care if it's missing some chart hits. But for a completist like me, it's somewhat frustrating. I just hope that some day Sony will get on the ball and do a 4-cd box set with all of his hits & some nice rarities.

Here's a good compilation of Marty Robbins' recordings. Beginning with his Do-Wop 1950's Rock-n-Roll sound, to his famous western ballads, and on up to his work on "Honky Tonk Man". All in all, a very good collection, although there are obviously some songs that could've been provided (for instance, where is "The Chair"?). The sound on this 2-CD set is great, no complaints there. Well worth your money and ear. B+

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