Dean Martin – Dean Martin Country Style / Dean “Tex” Martin Rides Again

This fascinating, very listenable twofer is made up of the first country albums Dean Martin ever made, released in 1963. His turn to country began offhandedly — one in a string of alternatives to his former big-range dramatics that new label Reprise was trying out. In fact, Dino had enormous respect for country music and was plain good at the stuff, arguably the best at it of any of the old-line crooners. These LPs would change his career — and the way people heard country pop, grabbing listeners north and south.

Dino’s skillful, touching takes on “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, “Blue, Blue Day”, “Candy Kisses” and “I Can’t Help It” show the short space between a saloon and a honky tonk. If Martin’s soulful “gulp” points still sound more like crying in your wine than in your beer, that gulp still comes.

He works numbers designed to ride the country/pop line as well as anyone. “Singing The Blues” annihilates the Guy Mitchell pop version; his take on Eddy Arnold’s “Any Time” is masterful. And it’s all much closer to the real deal in spirit than Tony Bennett’s 1950s Hank covers.

The first LP, playing in the space Ray Charles had laid out in 1962 on Modern Sounds In Country & Western Music, is relatively lean. The ballads work fine, even with strings and “Young Caucasian” backup singers, but rhythmic numbers such as “I Walk The Line” elude the producers.

They brought in a young Texas rock ‘n’ roller named Jimmy Bowen to produce the second disc, who, with nods to the country turns of Sam Cooke, Brook Benton, and especially Nat King Cole on “Ramblin’ Rose”, found a way for Martin to throw the fastball again. This sound was workable enough that country would account for nearly half of Martin’s output for the rest of his career, impacting hits like “Everybody Loves Somebody” as much as the more obviously twang-tinged “Houston”.

Bowen would take these tricks to Nashville, get huge, and eventually produce…Garth Brooks.