Marty Robbins had already recorded songs that millions of Americans knew by heart. But one of the most personal recordings in Marty Robbins’ career began with a simple promise to his wife, Marizona Robbins, and their 14-year-old son, Ronny Robbins.
Neither Marizona Robbins nor Ronny Robbins had ever written a song before. Marty Robbins encouraged them to try, promising that if they wrote one, Marty Robbins would include it on an album.
What followed became a remarkable little chapter in the Robbins family history. Marizona Robbins wrote the words. Fourteen-year-old Ronny Robbins composed the music. And Marty Robbins eventually did something even more meaningful than the original promise required.
Marty Robbins made their very first song the title track of an entire gospel album.
A Promise That Brought the Family Into Marty Robbins’ Music
By the mid-1960s, Marty Robbins was already one of country music’s most recognizable voices. Songs such as “El Paso,” “A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation),” and “Don’t Worry” had established Marty Robbins as a recording star capable of moving effortlessly between western ballads, country music, and popular songs.
But away from the familiar hits, Marty Robbins had another musical connection close to home.
According to Diane Diekman’s biography, Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins, Marty Robbins told Marizona Robbins and Ronny Robbins, “If you write a song, I’ll put it in an album.”
For someone with Marty Robbins’ recording experience, writing a song was familiar territory. For Marizona Robbins and Ronny Robbins, it was something new.
Marizona Robbins took responsibility for the lyrics. Looking back on the experience, Marizona Robbins described the words as coming “from my heart; it was the way I felt.”
That description says a great deal about the nature of the song. Marizona Robbins wasn’t simply trying to imitate the country hits associated with Marty Robbins. The lyrics came from personal faith and conviction.
Ronny Robbins, only 14 years old, supplied the melody. Together, mother and son completed their first composition.
The Song Marty Robbins Chose to Record
The song was called “What God Has Done.”
And Marty Robbins kept the promise.
Rather than merely finding room for the family composition somewhere on a record, Marty Robbins recorded “What God Has Done” and selected it as the title track of a gospel album released by Columbia Records in the mid-1960s.
The album included familiar religious selections such as “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” “The Great Speckled Bird,” and “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.”
Among those established gospel songs was a composition credited to Marizona Robbins and Ronny Robbins.
That detail is what makes the recording so interesting. The song wasn’t written by a professional Nashville songwriting team looking for a hit. It was the first collaboration between a mother and her teenage son, recorded by the husband and father who had encouraged them to write it.
The album also reflected a side of Marty Robbins that sometimes receives less attention than the western gunfighter songs. Gospel music was part of Marty Robbins’ remarkably varied recording career, and “What God Has Done” brought the Robbins family’s own contribution into that part of the catalog.
More Than a Songwriting Credit
For country music listeners, the name Marty Robbins often brings to mind the dramatic stories of “El Paso” or the unforgettable melodies of Marty Robbins’ biggest hits.
But “What God Has Done” tells a different kind of story.
There was no famous chart-topping single at the center of this family experience. The remarkable achievement was much more personal: Marizona Robbins and Ronny Robbins wrote their first song together, and Marty Robbins gave that composition a permanent place among Marty Robbins’ recordings.
Years later, listeners could still find the names of Marizona Robbins and Ronny Robbins in the songwriting credits, attached to the gospel recording that began with Marty Robbins’ encouragement.
For anyone who has ever wondered what it might mean to have a father believe in a child’s first attempt at something creative, this small piece of country music history offers an especially touching example.
Marty Robbins left behind an extraordinary collection of songs. But tucked among the better-known recordings is an album whose title came from the first song Marty Robbins’ wife and 14-year-old son ever wrote.
And that is what makes What God Has Done worth remembering: before it was an album title, it was a family’s first songwriting collaboration and a promise Marty Robbins chose to keep.