More than 40 years after Marty Robbins died, his musical legacy is as enduring as the yearlong sunny skies over the Valley.
Classic songs from the favorite son of Glendale continue to live on just in 2024 alone.
His iconic “El Paso” has been a regular live pick for Dead & Company, the offshoot band of The Grateful Dead, who twice this year performed the classic in concert at The Sphere in Las Vegas. That’s no surprise given that the original Grateful Dead performed “El Paso” almost 400 times throughout their long career, one of their most frequently played live songs ever.
Adding the tune to their live set for the first time was clearly the idea of Dead guitarist Bob Weir. At the show where the band debuted their first “El Paso” on July 14, 1970, in San Rafael, California (1:04:50 mark), Jerry Garcia introduces the song as “Here’s where Weir gets his wish.”
Another Robbins song surfaced again in a live setting this week from a Beatle who, like The Dead, has a long history with the songs of the Country Music Hall of Famer who was born in Glendale in 1925.
On his current Got Back tour, which is rolling through Europe this month, Paul McCartney performed “Singing The Blues” as recently as this past Sunday in Manchester. According to the online archive setlist.fm, which painstakingly chronicles more than 6 million setlists from almost 280,000 artists throughout music history, McCartney has performed “Singing The Blues” live 20 times, which is the fifth most live versions of the tune all time. Cliff Richard’s 57 “Singing The Blues” covers are the most.
McCartney has been playing “Singing The Blues” during some of his ticketed VIP soundchecks on his current tour. He notably performed it live during his 1991 MTV “Unplugged” set, which was officially released that year.
Robbins recorded the original version of the Melvin Endsley-penned “Singing The Blues” in Nashville in 1956 where it crossed over from the country and western charts to reach the Top 20 on the US Pop Chart by the next year. Guy Mitchell’s subsequent version went all the way to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in early 1957, right around the time a teenage McCartney would meet John Lennon in Liverpool.
“I thought, yes, this is an important song in our lives,” McCartney said of the tune back in a 1991 interview with a fan club magazine.
Long before McCartney covered the Marty Robbins classic, Robbins himself covered the McCartney-written Beatles ballad “Yesterday” on his own 1968 album “By The Time I Get to Phoenix.”
Less than a year later the Beatles ran through “Singing The Blues” during their famous “Get Back” sessions in January 1969, although their rough go of the song was never released.
After moving from Glendale to Nashville, Robbins joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1953 to kick off a career that spanned 94 chart records – including 16 No. 1 hits on the country charts. The Academy of Country Music named Robbins its Man of the Decade for the 1960s.
Robbins died from a heart attack at age 57 in 1982. A one-mile stretch of Glendale Avenue in downtown Glendale in 2016 was officially named Marty Robbins Boulevard. Marty Robbins Plaza is located beside Pizza Old Roma, at 5740 W. Glendale Ave.
His music is alive and well meanwhile.
In 2013, “El Paso” played a major role in the series finale of “Breaking Bad,” one of the most acclaimed television episodes of all time. The 2019 blockbuster film “Rocketman,” an Elton John biopic, features a pivotal scene depicting when Elton and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin first met and bonded over a love of Marty Robbins that sees both characters sing his original song “Streets of Laredo.”
“Once I heard Marty Robbins, I knew I wanted to be a songwriter,” the real Taupin told the Tennessean in 2018. “When I heard ‘El Paso,’ I was like, ‘You can tell stories? This can be cinematic? You can make songs out of stories?’ It’s what these guys were doing. I didn’t know what you did to write songs. I knew nothing about bridges and choruses, but I gave it a shot and it worked out.”
In 2006, rock legends The Who released their album “Endless Wire,” which featured a song written by Pete Townshend called “God Speaks of Marty Robbins.”
“It’s about God waking up one day and deciding to invent the universe,” Townshend said as he introduced the song at a 2005 acoustic show. “And he doesn’t start with fire or light. He starts with a country and western singer called Marty Robbins. And he works on from there.”
Steve Stockmar
News Editor | Sun Life Magazine & Arts & Entertainment
YourValley.net
sstockmar@iniusa.org
Meet Steve
Steve Stockmar joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2017, and has been an Arizona journalist for almost 30 years. He serves as editor of Sun Life Magazine and contributes to West Valley communities where he focuses mostly on arts & culture, education, and profiles of neighbors making a difference.
Community: Every season Steve serves as a “buddy” with the Miracle League of Arizona in Scottsdale, has volunteered his time with Family Promise in Glendale, and previously served on the Ghostlight Theatre board in Sun City West.
Education: Graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff with a Journalism major and English minor.
Random Fact: Steve once won a 50-player live Texas Hold ’Em poker tournament.
Hobbies: Anguishing over his beloved Chicago Cubs and Bears; listening to Beatles and Grateful Dead music.
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