No. 50 in our Best Western Songs countdown. Frankie Laine gives “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” the weight of a frontier legend. His voice sounds as though it belongs to someone who has watched the dust settle and lived to tell the story. Released in 1957, the song brings the sweep of a big-screen Western into a compact, forceful performance.
A voice for a screen legend
Dimitri Tiomkin composed the music and Ned Washington wrote the lyrics for Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the 1957 Paramount film directed by John Sturges. Burt Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas plays Doc Holliday. Laine’s singing gives their world an immediate musical identity: tense, expansive, and full of the sense that a reckoning is on its way.
The American Film Institute catalog credits Laine as the singer of the Tiomkin–Washington title song. The film opened in New York on May 29, 1957. Its treatment of Earp and Holliday belongs to Hollywood storytelling; the song works in that same larger-than-life tradition.
The original Columbia single
Columbia also issued Laine’s recording on single 4-40916, paired with “Without Him.” A Columbia advertisement in the May 25, 1957 issue of Cash Box promoted both titles and identified “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” as the theme Laine sang in the film.
The drama in Laine’s delivery
Laine does more than announce the setting. He gives the melody a firm forward pull, shaping the phrases so the danger feels close even before the story reaches its confrontation. His strong, open delivery suits the orchestral scale without losing the directness of a storyteller addressing the listener.
That is the appeal of this record: the performance can suggest an entire Western in a few minutes. The title carries the location, while Laine supplies the human urgency. Listen to the way he presses into a line and then lets the next phrase gather strength. The song feels built for a screen, but it holds your attention without one.
The official Dimitri Tiomkin website documents Laine’s vocal contributions to the film’s opening, closing, and act-break versions of the theme. His voice is woven into the picture’s musical storytelling.
The Western Writers of America list reproduced by Dave’s Music Database places “Gunfight at the OK Corral” at No. 50. For another side of Laine’s Western sound, revisit “Rawhide.” You can also continue through our Best Western selections, Nos. 41–50.