Mister Teardrop

Marty Robbins wasn't a garden-variety anything as a recording artist, and although he was ostensibly a country star, he truthfully was as much pop and rock & roll as he was country, and he always had a refreshing ability to shift directions and give a song what it needed with little regard for genre or the prevailing stylistic winds swirling around the pop and country worlds. This set collects his early sides from the '50s, beginning with his first single from 1952, "Love Me or Leave Me Alone," through 1955's clever covers of "Maybellene" and "That's All Right," 1956's "Singing the Blues," 1957's collaboration with Ray Conniff, "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)," the teen pop "She Was Only Seventeen (He Was One Year More)," also from 1957, and closing with 1959's "The Hanging Tree," the first of Robbins' mock epic wild west cowboy songs. Much more was to come for Robbins as a recording artist, of course, but the early essentials are collected here. ~ Steve Leggett