8 of the Most Notorious Outlaws in Texas History

BEFORE “EL PASO” TURNED MARTY ROBBINS INTO A WESTERN LEGEND, THERE WAS A SOFTER SIDE OF HIM THAT MANY LISTENERS FIRST FELL FOR. Long before the gunfighter ballads became the image most people remembered, Marty Robbins had already built a reputation for heartbreak songs and a remarkably smooth vocal style. In his early years, he was even described as “the boy with the teardrop in his voice,” a phrase tied to the emotional tone that helped define his sound. That is what makes Marty Robbins so fasc

YOU'VE BEEN HEARING MARTY ROBBINS' "EL PASO" ALL WRONG — IT'S NOT A WESTERN BALLAD, IT'S A CONFESSION HE COULDN'T STOP WRITING Why does a man spend twenty-three years rewriting the same song? Everyone knows the cowboy story — Rosa's Cantina, the gunfight, dying in Felina's arms. Greatest Western ballad ever written. But Robbins didn't stop there. He wrote a sequel in 1966. Another in 1976. He was working on a fourth when he died in 1982 — pen still in his hand. Nobody returns to a fictional cowb

Behind the Song: Marty Robbins, "El Paso"