Marty Robbins - Big Iron

ORIGINATION Essential Country & Western (v/a) CD
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT good
RATING ★★★★★

I first came across and enjoyed Big Iron on Johnny Cash's American IV album of 2003. Having not looked at the sleeve particularly closely, I did not realise it was one of the many covers he made during those recordings. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to come across the original version of it this week, on a damn fine compilation of recently copyright-free country and western music.

Marty Robbins, the writer and performer of that original, seems to have been a colourful individual, with a life that included not only being a country music star, but also the war in the Pacific, hosting his own television show, acting and race car driving. His version of the song feels considerably faster than Cash's and, with plenty of guitar picking, a high-tone upright bass and swathes of vowel-heavy backing vocals, has a lighter air. In some ways that lightness seems to clash with the tale of a killer and his death, yet there is something infectious in the bouncing tempo and the delightful guitar picking that is hard not to like.