A Grammy-winning cowboy balladeer who accidentally invented the fuzz guitar sound that helped shape rock and roll — then deliberately crashed a magenta race car into a wall at nearly 200 mph to save another driver's life. Marty Robbins, born Martin David Robinson, lived like three different people in one country music timeline: teen pop idol, Western balladeer, and NASCAR daredevil.

His story runs from a Navy stint in the Pacific, where he taught himself guitar as a psychological survival tool, to hosting Phoenix television's Western Caravan, to Nashville stardom and an act of defiance that made him an early pioneer of outlaw country. When Columbia refused his politically radioactive material, Robbins simply bypassed the label — the same way he bypassed NASCAR's carburetor restrictors.

• Kept a blown studio transformer's ...