Ava Material

Although he lived most of his life in Nashville, Marty never left the west behind. He proved that he could masterfully reinterpret classic western ballads, as well as write new ones every bit as good as the old ones. His western recordings for both Columbia and MCA are complete here, spanning the years 1958-1979. The set starts with The Hanging Tree, then encompasses the best-selling Gunfighter Ballads albums that included such classic tracks as El Paso, Big Iron, Tonight Carmen, Mister Shorty, and The Cowboy In The Continental Suit, as well as the El Paso sequels like Feleena From El Paso and El Paso City. Marty mixed self-composed epics with many of the greatest vintage western songs to create a tapestry of music that powerfully evokes the old west and the west in transition.

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and on television (garnering two Emmy Awards in the process), and he even treated listening audiences to his accomplished tap dancing on records and on his own radio series. He appeared in another eight non-musical feature films and on numerous television programs, resulting in an Academy Award nomination and a third Emmy Award as an actor. His light tenor voice and smooth, conversational phrasing made him an ideal interpreter for the major songwriters of his era, and he introduced dozens of pop standards, many of them written expressly for him, by such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans.