Today’s post was written by Paul.
Marty Robbins
According to Google, Thomas Haynes Bayly wrote the song “Long Ago” in 1843. When I was a teenager, I had a cassette tape of Marty Robbins that was loaded with songs (mostly cowboy songs) that didn’t appear on any of his popular albums. The reason for this is that it was released posthumously.
Marty died in 1983. Back then, all adults seemed old to me, but Marty was only 57 when he died, just 5 years older than I am now.
Record labels often release everything they have in the vault or archives when a well known singer passes away. The same thing took place when Hank Sr. passed.
Interestingly, one round of posthumous releases for Hank were on an album called “Just Me and My Guitar.” According to Google, “Long Ago” first appeared on a posthumous album of Marty called “Me and My Guitar.” Hank recorded for MGM and Marty recorded for Columbia, so those two albums weren’t part of any type of series, just two different labels producing albums with the same type of idea.
Another similarity in both situations is that after releasing archival audio of Marty and Hank that featured only one guitar and vocal, the labels then added music from session musicians and released most of the songs again.
The recording I heard of Marty singing “Long Ago” was certainly not just him and his guitar. Marty was very good at playing Spanish style guitar, but I don’t think he was as good as what appears on the recording I heard.
Though I never checked into the song’s history until right after I shot this video, I knew that it was probably very old. One reason I thought this is because, once when I was singing part of the song to myself while doing something in the kitchen or living room, Granny told me that when she was a little girl, she and her classmates sang the song at school during their music class. That’s one reason I took the little crocheted heart off my coffee table and put it on the couch back behind me for this video. 🙂
When I was trying to think of a song for this week’s Old Timey Tuesday, I got to wondering and thinking about a song that I could sing that my friend Darrell Savage might enjoy. Darrel is a huge Marty fan and a real master of Marty’s vocal style. Even though this Marty song may be somewhat rare, I bet that Darrell has heard it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has sung it.
Several Acorns have requested to hear me sing more in a lower register, so this video kind of killed two birds with one old timey tune.
Songs don’t get much more nostalgic than this one. I think this song would be really pretty with harmonica. I thought about grabbing the headphones and shooting a couple of separate videos so that I could add a harmonica break and fills. I talked myself out of it when I remembered how long it takes to edit that kind of thing together.
Though I made a very simple cover of the song, I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know in the comments if you remember this song from way back, like Granny did, or if this is your first time hearing it. Here is a link to the recording of Marty that I heard back in the 1980’s. The Spanish style guitar playing is exquisite. Makes me wonder if it was Grady Martin, Jack Pruett, or another picker who recorded later with Marty. I didn’t dig very deeply, but I wasn’t able to find out who played guitar on the recording. There’s also some kind of vibraphone or something of that nature in the recording. It’s very pretty and gives the song a magical quality. The Louvins sometimes used that same type of instrument/sound on very slow songs, like “Almost Persuaded.”
Thanks for watching!
Paul
Original singles released on Spotify.
Shepherd of My Soul (Album released in 2016).
The Wilson Brothers Words of Life Album released in the 70s.
