Country 1960-1966

As a previous reviewer has stated this wonderful bear family box set contains treasure by the bucket load. Marty robbins was a superb artist in my opinion perhaps one of the greatest of all time. There are so many brilliant songs on this set that it's hard to single them out individually, suffice to say there isn't a bad track on this set. Beautifully crafted songs with uncluttered backing that let Marty's amazing vocals shine. Buy this set with the utmost confidence you won't be disappointed.

What can I possibly say?. This is Marty Robbins at his absolute best.

Brilliant compilation of my old LPs along with some songs I had not got and not been available on CD before.

Marty Robbins was without doubt, the greatest vocalist ever to sing Country music. The possessor of a beautiful, soulful voice he could sing any genre that he put his mind and voice to and was almost self reliant on his own considerable songwriting talent and charisma loaded stage appeal. Widely admired by such luminaries such as Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Jim Reeves, Frankie Laine and Elvis Presley this box set features recordings of some of his absolutely greatest performances from such classic albums like RFD, What God Has Done and Devil Woman.

Marty Robbins is a difficult artist to pigeon hole for a reissue programme, and Bear Family has chosen to release his albums and box sets by category. Thus we get Western, Rock 'n Roll, Hawaiian and Caribbean; but that leaves his purely Country recordings, and this set gives us his output from 1960 to 1966.Marty entered the 1960s on the career high that El Paso gave him, but these recordings are many and various, certainly not churning out the same old stuff. Indeed, hidden away inside is Martys truly great album "RFD", or Rural Free Delivery, where he revisits his 50's roots and if not his masterpiece, is certainly an album I and many others will treasure. It contains the ultimate weeper, "Southern Dixie Flyer", where a mother waits on the station for the delivery of her sons coffin by the incoming train. Marty was not called Mr Teardrop for nothing, and his vocal soars with a crying steel guitar to maximum effect.There are many superb tracks, including "Begging To You", which was a hit for him, and also "Lolene", a lovely ballad which wasn't.If you like Martys voice, there is treasure here. He did great covers as his Hank Williams sides attest to, and he never lost sight of his Country roots. If you only know Marty from El Paso, then give this a go, because the man could sing, and he was a good judge of material. Only on a couple of tracks like Private Wilson White did the Republican right wing shine through, but frankly these are included as historical curiosities.In all, Bear Family have put together a great collection of some of Martys lesser known material, but it is also some of his best. A worthy remembrance of a great Country singer.