It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Ribbon of Darkness” by Marty Robbins
June 23, 1965
“Ribbon of Darkness” by Marty Robbins
#1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, June 19-25, 1965
By the 1960s, the latter half of “country & western” had become largely obsolete, a relic of the days of Roy Rogers and Bob Wills. One of the few country stars who kept the cowboy spirit alive during that decade was Marty Robbins, a Glendale, Arizona, native whose roots in the urban Southwest ensured he’d never fit comfortably into the bubble of “hillbilly music.” Robbins’ gently crooning, authoritative baritone bore no trace of Southern drawl, and he always seemed a bit too dignified to venture far into the honky tonk. Instead, he found his niche spinning tales of the open plains and self-sufficient rancheros, as encapsulated by the title of his most successful LP, 1959’s Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. “El Paso,” a tragic but catchy story song from the album, topped both the country and pop charts in 1960, firmly entrenching his persona as the contemporary Western balladeer.
Robbins continually explored other musical avenues, however, which kept him a steady presence on the country charts for 30 years. His versatile sound ensured he frequently crossed over to pop audiences as well. Robbins’ second-biggest pop hit, 1957’s prom-themed “A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation),” could scarcely be further from the high stakes, gunfighting drama of “El Paso” (although a jilted teenager might beg to differ). Robbins earned 13 Top 40 pop hits between 1956 and 1963; by the mid-’60s, however, his success was almost entirely confined to the country realm. In 1965, he earned his eleventh country #1 record with “Ribbon of Darkness,” written by an up-and-coming Canadian folk singer named Gordon Lightfoot.
At the time, the 26-year-old Lightfoot had yet to release an album, but his songs were already beginning to catch on among the folk cognoscenti. After making his name on the Toronto coffeehouse circuit in the early ‘60s, he earned a couple of local hits in 1962 before migrating to Europe, where he briefly hosted The Country and Western Show for the BBC. On returning to his homeland, his songwriting career received a boost when preeminent Canadian folksters Ian & Sylvia recorded two of his compositions, “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me”; both songs would swiftly be covered by several other artists, including Judy Collins and Chad & Jeremy.
A concurrence of lucky events in mid-1965 brought Lightfoot’s gradual career rise to a tipping point. Folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary earned a US Top 40 hit with their version of “For Lovin’ Me”; they’d also help popularize “Early Mornin’ Rain” later that year. Lightfoot’s recording of his own “I’m Not Sayin’,” his first single since his European sojourn, peaked in Canada at #12, heralding the start of his career as one of the nation’s biggest stars. (A cover version by German model Nico, recorded around the same time, would later achieve cult status as her first single, predating her work with the Velvet Underground.) And, for one week in June, Marty Robbins brought “Ribbon of Darkness” to the top of the US country charts.
Robbins’ stark, minimal arrangement of the song bears a strong resemblance to the one that would turn up on the songwriter’s debut album Lightfoot! the following year. Both interpretations use rapidly fingerpicked guitar and melodic whistling as a simple frame for the singer’s reflective, resonant baritone. Similarly, the directness of Lightfoot’s lyrics makes the narrator’s expressions of heartbreak all the more affecting. The terseness and no-frills style of “Ribbon of Darkness” highlights another similarity between Robbins and Lightfoot, apart from their comparable vocal style: their shared stoic masculinity — strong and, if not quite silent, then quietly poetic.
“Ribbon of Darkness” seems an unlikely hit for the ’60s country chart, neither belonging to the smooth, pop-friendly Nashville sound or the harder-edged, traditionalist Bakersfield sound. Yet it was a tribute to the distinctive territory that Robbins had carved out for himself that this folk song fit naturally within his body of work. (A few years later, Connie Smith’s more conventionally arranged version repatriated the song to the Great White North, soaring to #1 on the RPM Canadian country charts.) Meanwhile, Lightfoot spent the rest of the ’60s steadily building up his recording career in his native country, before 1970’s “If You Could Read My Mind” broke into the US Top 5 and made him an international star. Despite Robbins and Lightfoot’s differences in age, nationality, and chosen musical genre, the simplicity of “Ribbon of Darkness” strikes at a common theme of their work: an expression of heartbreak that neither dwells on the pain nor ignores it, but quietly accepts it as a necessary emotion.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
