Bobby Sykes

A top session man -- particularly in association with <a href="spotify:artist:0Xi59sEw38vRvwleSAVqoo">Marty Robbins</a>, with whom he worked and performed for many years, guitarist/singer Bobby Sykes also enjoyed a recording career of his own on labels such as <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA-Victor%22">RCA-Victor</a>, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sims%22">Sims</a>, and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Starday%22">Starday</a> during the 1960s. Sykes was already a member of <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a>' band, and <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> had enjoyed a string of hits in country and rock & roll, and one Western hit, "The Hanging Tree," when Sykes and singer/guitarist and session man <a href="spotify:artist:1xjvd80xkMAa6kqYWZ6cIZ">Jim Glaser</a> suggested that he record a complete album of Western songs. The result was Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs and its follow-up, which opened up a whole new and very fertile field of music for <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> and hundreds of other country performers in the decades to come.

Sykes and <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> were thick as thieves where music and politics were concerned. In 1964, <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> wrote a pair of topical songs, "Ain't I Right" and "My Own Native Land," attacking Communist sympathizers and antiwar protesters and implicitly supporting the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater that year. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> was afraid of the potential political repercussions of <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> releasing the songs, and instead Sykes recorded them for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sims%22">Sims</a> label -- using the alias "Johnny Freedom" -- in a voice so similar to <a href="spotify:artist:2JJY9l2Ngrpm0tc9d0Ckgz">Robbins</a> that for many years the single was mistaken for a <a href="spotify:artist:0Xi59sEw38vRvwleSAVqoo">Marty Robbins</a> release.

Sykes' own singles on the Jed and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Dollie%22">Dollie</a> labels during the late '50s and '60s included the ballads "A Touch of Loving" and "Until You're in My Arms" and the classic "Diesel Smoke and Dangerous Curves," a favorite pick of car- and truck-song compilers and country music enthusiasts. He also recorded for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Starday%22">Starday</a>, including "Place for Girls Like You," which opens up the multi-artist compilation The Wonderful World of Country Music, released in the mid-'70s. Additionally, Sykes also recorded a dozen or more country numbers for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a> through <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Reader%27s+Digest%22">Reader's Digest</a> for that publisher's Country and Western Jamboree series, six songs in collaboration with singer Lou Darnell and six more solo, with songwriters ranging from <a href="spotify:artist:1P9syEkl41IFowWIJN7ZBY">Pete Seeger</a> ("On Top of Old Smokey"), <a href="spotify:artist:43GB9K58iB2fIEFVt5ZSp2">Pee Wee King</a> ("Bonaparte's Retreat"), and <a href="spotify:artist:0Y0ZlznP6vzTS1qAm5dvTN">Jimmie Rodgers</a> ("In The Jailhouse Now") to <a href="spotify:artist:1FClsNYBUoNFtGgzeG74dW">Hank Williams</a> ("Your Cheatin' Heart"), <a href="spotify:artist:0ow3Ac8tlahUoDVXbRuaRy">Jimmie Davis</a> ("You Are My Sunshine"), and <a href="spotify:artist:1sv41JLLdczDyPjHDvo2dn">Floyd Tillman</a> ("I Love You So Much It Hurts"). His most visible work, however, remains the playing and singing he did on numerous <a href="spotify:artist:0Xi59sEw38vRvwleSAVqoo">Marty Robbins</a> singles and albums, and their CD reissues. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi