Trivia / Marty Robbins

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• Colbert Bump: Though Marty has always been a big name among fans of classic country music, Fallout: New Vegas' use of "Big Iron" posthumously earned him a new generation of fans.
• Creator Backlash: Legendary Nashville songwriter/producer Bobby Braddock was the keyboardist in Robbins' touring band for a couple of years at the start of his career, and played piano on his 1966 recording of "Count Me Out". In his memoirs, Braddock admits to being embarrassed by his fumbling, low energy solo on the song, calling it "the most amateurish thing ever heard on a major label." As Braddock explains it, in rehearsals he'd worked out a solo that everyone thought was great, but right before they recorded the song, Marty decided to change it to a different key, which forced Braddock to adjust his playing on the fly. Robbins assured him that the song was only a B-Side and no one would hear it, but instead it ended up as the A-side and became a fairly big hit.
• Edited for Syndication: Columbia Records was nervous about "El Paso" getting radio airplay, since it ran 4:37, massively long for a song in 1959. While the full version was issued on the commercial 45 single, they also sent out◊ a 2:58 "special radio station edition", explaining that it was "edited for your programming requirements," cutting out a lot of the middle. However, almost all radio stations went with the longer version.
• Referenced by...: "El Paso" was featured in Steve Martin's 1980 TV special Comedy is Not Pretty, in a music video playing out the song's storyline where Martin played the protagonist but all the other characters were played by chimpanzees, with all the horses played by Shetland ponies...except for the one the protagonist steals when he flees Rose's, which is an elephant!
• Throw It In!: The distinctive fuzzy guitar work on "Don't Worry" was the result of a faulty pre-amp, and was left in because the producer liked it (although the guitarist didn't). Interestingly, they had difficulty re-creating the sound live, so the part was usually played on a distorted pedal steel guitar live, as seen here.
• Tuckerization: Feleena from the songs "El Paso" and "Feleena (From El Paso)" had her name derived from an elementary school classmate of Robbins named Fidelina.

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