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[5] On Columbia Records
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[5] On Columbia Records AlthoughMartinDavidRobinsonbecameMartyRobbins,withhisbirthname used for legal matters, Marizona would forever remain Marizona Robinson. The young couple struggled with both their relationship and their finances as 1950 approached. Marty spent little time at home, working gigs wherever he could find them, and Marizona took care of the house and baby. During this period Marty’s songwriting focused on heartache, usually pining for a lost love. Years later, he would say, “I like to be by myself because I like the feeling of being lonely. When I get to feeling that way, then I can write a song. But if I’m happy, I can’t write a song.”1 He must have felt unhappy a lot. Some songs were autobiographical: “You seem to forget you’re not perfect; you show me 34 my faults every day. . . . We’re never apart, yet I’m second in your heart, and it looks like I’m just in your way.” “I had become a Christian,” Marizona says, “and he felt threatened by it.” Hewroteasongtitled“I’llGoOnAlone”andleftforanout-of-towngig.“With you believing like you do, you say I live so wrong,” the lyrics said. “But I can’t change the way I live, I’ve lived that way too long.” Upon his return, he gave Marizona another song, “It’s Your Heart’s Turn to Break.” The self-accusing lyrics said, “You didn’t try to understand when she was feeling blue, your every wish was her command, she lived her life for you.” MartytoldMarizona,“Honey,I’llneverdoanythinglikethattohurtyouagain,” and he gave her five dollars to put in the offering plate at church. “So I knew he was truly repentant,” she says. Marizona adored her singing cowboy, gladly providing Marty with the attention he craved throughout his life. “He’d sit on the end of the bed with his guitar and sing,” she recalls. “It would be one or two o’clock in the morning and it’s special because those are songs we learned as children.”2 Mamie once went to see her twin brother sing in a nightclub, and he told her to go home to her husband. She felt Marty “could be domineering” with Marizona, as he had always treated Mamie. “With her long dresses and hair pulled back, I thought she had a Holy Roller look,” Mamie says. “I wonder now whether part of her attraction for him was that he felt she was somebody he could keep in the background.”3 Marty took over as headliner at Vern and Don’s in late 1949 when Frankie Starr left Phoenix for Texas. Fred Kare from Chicago purchased the club on East Van Buren Street and renamed it Fred Kare’s Bar and Supper Club. Two musicians who joined the band at Starr’s invitation stayed with Marty—Floyd Lanning on lead guitar and Jimmy Farmer on steel guitar. Known as the K-Bar Boys, the trio worked there for three years. “It wouldn’t hold more than one hundred people,” Marty said. “But every night, it was packed. They’d stand in line outside waiting for somebody to come out so they could go in.” Lanning sang Eddy Arnold songs, and Marty learned other popular songs of the day. Wheneverhegotachancetosing“It’saSin,”hediditexactlylikeEddyArnold’s number one record.4 Sometime in 1950, Marty moved his family from Glendale to 2940 West Pima in Phoenix. Their new location lessened his travel time to KPHO and Kare’s.MarizonaregularlyattendedWestsideAssemblyofGodon29thAvenue, [35.170.81.62] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:03 GMT) 35 [ CH 5 ] On Columbia Records and when Marty wasn’t working out of town, he went to church with her and Ronny.Ateenagedchurchmember,BettySexton,enjoyedvisitingtheRobbins house. “We would go down to their house, and he’d get the guitar out and play and sing for us,” she says. “He’d written a couple of religious songs he’d sing, his big bare foot patting on the floor.”5 Television came to Arizona when KPHO-TV began broadcasting from HotelWestwardHoindowntownPhoenix.ItwastheonlystationbetweenSan DiegoandElPaso.Onedayin1950theKPHOprogramdirectoraskedMartyif he would like to do some television; the visual side of the station had nothing to play for fifteen minutes and needed to fill the slot. “I said, no, sir, because it made me nervous,” Marty recalled. “Almost sick to my stomach.” The program director asked, “Do you like your radio job?” “Yes, sir.” “If you want to keep your radio job, you’ll do fifteen minutes of television.” Wearing his simple outfit of cowboy shirt and...