Country's jack-of-all-trades, Marty Robbins handled so many musical styles so well. The common threads were his shivering, fragile tenor; an ability to tastefully emote; and of course, an uncanny knack for appealing to popular tastes. From his earliest heart-rending ballads to his Western sagas, rockabilly romps, countrypolitan crooning, standards, and even his kitschy pop, Robbins lent them all a grace and civility that was simply hard to resist because he never (well, rarely) confused accessibility with shallowness. Though best known for bringing the cowboy uptown, Robbins helped expand the parameters of what a "country" artist could do, his choices defined by quality of material and performance, not genre. --Marc Greilsamer