At Town Hall Party

Two 1959 appearances by Marty Robbins on the Los Angeles-area Town Hall Party TV show are on this DVD, the bulk of them from a February 21, 1959, performance, with just two songs from an October 3, 1959, show. It's heavy on 1950s hits like "I Can't Quit," "The Story of My Life" (an early Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition), "Just Married," "The Hanging Tree," "I'll Go Alone" (as part of a three-song medley), and "A White Sport Coat," the last of which is probably the highlight of the whole disc. Robbins was not the most animated of performers -- in fact, according to the liner notes, he had turned down an Ed Sullivan Show spot not long before the ones on Town Hall Party due to nervousness. So, unlike much other late-'50s footage that survives from Town Hall Party (as seen on other Bear Family DVDs devoted to the Collins Kids, Johnny Cash, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran), the viewing pleasure here is more exclusive to the committed Robbins fan than it is to the general country or rockabilly fan. When he brings out the trio Tompall & the Glaser Brothers (including future country outlaw notable Tompall Glaser) to sing their doo wop-influenced backup harmonies on a few numbers (such as "A White Sport Coat"), things liven up considerably. Tompall & the Glaser Brothers take the stage alone for a couple of numbers, as does frumpy Joe Hudgins (who traveled with Robbins as a supporting act) for the mediocre "Where'd You Stay Last Night." The set's punctuated by some brief on-stage interviews, one of them conducted by fellow country star Johnny Bond. As on all of Bear Family's Town Hall Party DVDs, the clips are taken from surviving kinescope prints and are thus not of the highest-possible quality, though actually they're quite watchable. ~ Richie Unterberger|