His Record Company Thought It Was Too Long for the Radio. Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” Became the First No. 1 of the 1960s

Marty Robbins was born Martin David Robinson in Glendale, Arizona, in 1925.

At 17 he joined the U.S. Navy and served in the Solomon Islands during World War II. To pass the time, he taught himself to play the guitar and started writing songs.

In 1959, he put out an album called “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.” On it was a song he had written himself, “El Paso.”

It tells the story of a cowboy who falls for a dancer named Feleena at Rosa’s Cantina. Robbins named her after a girl from his fifth-grade class, Fidelina Martinez.

There was one problem. The song ran about four and a half minutes, far longer than most singles back then. Columbia Records wasn’t sure radio stations would play it, so it also sent out a shorter version.

The public didn’t want the short one. Listeners and DJs wanted the whole story.

“El Paso” became the first No. 1 hit of the 1960s on both the country and the pop charts, and in 1961 it won a Grammy.

In this video, from 1965, Marty sings it on his TV show “The Drifter,” sitting with his guitar in an old western store.

Listen to how he tells the story. You can almost see the cowboy riding back to El Paso.

Marty passed away in December 1982, at 57. That same year he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Johnny Cash once said, “There’s no greater country singer than Marty Robbins.”

Can you still sing along to every word of “El Paso”? Tell us in the comments.