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James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing,[1][2][3] he was widely known as the King of Western Swing (although Spade Cooley self-promoted the moniker "King Of Western Swing" from 1942 to 1969).
Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who played steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station KVOO and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national popularity into the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke On The Water", "Stars And Stripes On Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step".
Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded with several publishers and companies, including Vocalion, Okeh, Columbia, and MGM, frequently moving. In 1950, he had two Top 10 hits, "Ida Red Likes The Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade. Throughout the 1950s, he struggled with poor health and tenuous finances, but continued to perform frequently despite the decline in popularity of his earlier music as rock and roll took over. Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys although Wills continued to perform solo.
The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills in 1968 and the Texas State Legislature honored him for his contribution to American music.[4]
In 1972, Wills accepted a citation from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in Nashville. He was recording an album with fan Merle Haggard in 1973 when a stroke left him comatose until his death in 1975. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.[5]
Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who played steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station KVOO and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national popularity into the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke On The Water", "Stars And Stripes On Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step".
Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded with several publishers and companies, including Vocalion, Okeh, Columbia, and MGM, frequently moving. In 1950, he had two Top 10 hits, "Ida Red Likes The Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade. Throughout the 1950s, he struggled with poor health and tenuous finances, but continued to perform frequently despite the decline in popularity of his earlier music as rock and roll took over. Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys although Wills continued to perform solo.
The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills in 1968 and the Texas State Legislature honored him for his contribution to American music.[4]
In 1972, Wills accepted a citation from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in Nashville. He was recording an album with fan Merle Haggard in 1973 when a stroke left him comatose until his death in 1975. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.[5]
Bob Wills - Wikipedia
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Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys on WFAA-TV's "MUSIC COUNTRY STYLE", 1963
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys on WFAA-TV's "MUSIC COUNTRY STYLE TV show, 1963.
Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that March 6 is the anniversary of the birth of American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader James Robert Wills who "was universally known as the King of Western Swing."
Rest in peace Bob Wills !
"Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys on WFAA-TV's "MUSIC COUNTRY STYLE", 1963"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcO19R8Jys
Images:
1. James Robert Wills
2. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys
Background from alancackett.com/bob-wills-biography
"Bob Wills
Ask anyone in Texas about musical legends, and they’ll proudly proclaim: ‘Bob Wills is still the king.’ Though he died in 1975, the veteran western swing band leader’s legacy remains. It was over seventy years ago that Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys first started barnstorming through Texas, Oklahoma and California with their souped-up blend of country, string-band, jazz and blues styles for a fresh-sounding popular country dance music. They were enthusiastic, exploratory days, lacking perhaps the sophistication one takes for granted today. But by god, they could jump and swing. Leader of the finest western swing band ever to grace country music, and in fact the originator of the style, Bob Wills is acknowledged as having been one of the most influential performers in country music. Asleep At The Wheel, Merle Haggard, Red Steagall and more recently, George Strait, Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Byrd have all utilised elements of the Bob Wills’ western swing style in their music.
Born near Kosse, Limestone County, Texas on March 6, 1905, James Robert Wills was the first of ten children of a fiddle-playing father. In 1913, the Wills’ family moved to Memphis, Texas, where Jim Rob began playing fiddle at square dances. His initial instrument having been the mandolin. He lived on the West Texas family farm until 1929, when he moved to Fort Worth and became ‘Bob’ Wills after working in a medicine show that possessed one too many Jims. Forming a duo, the Wills Fiddle Band, with guitarist Herman Arnspiger, he began playing dances in the Fort Worth area. A year later he added vocalist Milton Brown, the unit becoming the Light Crust Doughboys. They recorded for Victor in 1932, Brown leaving soon after, to be replaced by Tommy Duncan. Wills was fired from the Doughboys in 1933, due to his excessive drinking. He took Duncan and his banjo-playing brother, Johnnie Lee Wills with him to form his own outfit, Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys.
It was the era of radio and local sponsorship, and Wills and his Texas Playboys moved from station to station, picking up sponsorship and new listeners on the way, all the time playing local dances. A fairly average fiddle player, Wills’ main strengths were being a superb bandleader and songwriter and his musical arrangement skills.
It was a bubbling gumbo of Texas fiddle tunes, rural blues, big-band jazz and just about anything else that could get the floor moving. Wills was one of the first country performers to absorb the full impact of radio, which in the 1920s and 1930s began exposing the rural country people to urban music. His recordings flouted the ideal of pure country that attached itself to the likes of the Carter Family, who made their first recordings at about the time Wills began working as a dancehall fiddler. He went fully electric years before anybody else, and helped make the steel guitar a standard instrument for country music.
In the early days of the Playboys, most of the vocals were handled by Tommy Duncan, a singer possessing a fluid baritone voice that was equally at home with smooth ballads and blues tunes. The combination of reeds, brass and twin fiddles gave the Playboys a full and rich sound and by the early 1940s it had grown in size to an 18-piece band. A vocal version of San Antonio Rose, recorded in 1940, brought Wills and the band national acclaim, leading to film appearances in Take Me Back To Oklahoma and Go West Young Lady. By the late 1940s the Texas Playboys were outselling the top swing bands such as those of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.
During the post-war period, with the popularity of big bands generally fading, Wills was forced to use a smaller band and began featuring fiddles, electric steel guitar and string instruments more prominently. He continued to tour extensively until the mid-1960s, when he suffered a heart attack, and had to cut back on personal appearances, but continued recording until shortly before he suffered a severe stroke in December 1973. He never regained consciousness, although his actual death did not occur until May 13, 1975.
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1968 and was honoured by the State Of Texas on May 30, 1969. His music lives on through the Playboys reforming several times since his death and many younger singers recreating the Wills’ sound both on record and in live shows. The legacy of Bob Wills would be less distinguished, less memorable, and certainly less fun if his band had not consisted of extraordinary individuals like Jesse Ashlock, Sleepy Johnson, Leon McAuliffe, Eldon Shamblin, Noel Boggs, Johnny Gimble, Jimmie Widener, Herb Remington, etc. Listening to Bob Wills’ classic recordings you will fully understand why our great-grandparents eyes twinkled when they reminisced their dancing days to such classics as Faded Love, Stay All Night and St. Louis Blues. It is timeless music that just cannot be equalled. What was so great about Bob Wills was the diversity of his music. He did a great job of combining country, swing, jazz and blues into a musical blend with across-the-board appeal.
Recommended Listening
The Golden Era (Columbia Historic Edition 1987)
The King Of Western Swing (Charly 1983)
Anthology 1935-1973 (Rhino 1992)
The Longhorn Recordings (Bear Family 1994)
Faded Love 1947-1973 (Bear Family box set 2007)
San Antonio Rose 1932-1947 (Bear Family box set 2000)"
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price
~1006181:SCPO Morris Ramsey] SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
Rest in peace Bob Wills !
"Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys on WFAA-TV's "MUSIC COUNTRY STYLE", 1963"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcO19R8Jys
Images:
1. James Robert Wills
2. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys
Background from alancackett.com/bob-wills-biography
"Bob Wills
Ask anyone in Texas about musical legends, and they’ll proudly proclaim: ‘Bob Wills is still the king.’ Though he died in 1975, the veteran western swing band leader’s legacy remains. It was over seventy years ago that Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys first started barnstorming through Texas, Oklahoma and California with their souped-up blend of country, string-band, jazz and blues styles for a fresh-sounding popular country dance music. They were enthusiastic, exploratory days, lacking perhaps the sophistication one takes for granted today. But by god, they could jump and swing. Leader of the finest western swing band ever to grace country music, and in fact the originator of the style, Bob Wills is acknowledged as having been one of the most influential performers in country music. Asleep At The Wheel, Merle Haggard, Red Steagall and more recently, George Strait, Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Byrd have all utilised elements of the Bob Wills’ western swing style in their music.
Born near Kosse, Limestone County, Texas on March 6, 1905, James Robert Wills was the first of ten children of a fiddle-playing father. In 1913, the Wills’ family moved to Memphis, Texas, where Jim Rob began playing fiddle at square dances. His initial instrument having been the mandolin. He lived on the West Texas family farm until 1929, when he moved to Fort Worth and became ‘Bob’ Wills after working in a medicine show that possessed one too many Jims. Forming a duo, the Wills Fiddle Band, with guitarist Herman Arnspiger, he began playing dances in the Fort Worth area. A year later he added vocalist Milton Brown, the unit becoming the Light Crust Doughboys. They recorded for Victor in 1932, Brown leaving soon after, to be replaced by Tommy Duncan. Wills was fired from the Doughboys in 1933, due to his excessive drinking. He took Duncan and his banjo-playing brother, Johnnie Lee Wills with him to form his own outfit, Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys.
It was the era of radio and local sponsorship, and Wills and his Texas Playboys moved from station to station, picking up sponsorship and new listeners on the way, all the time playing local dances. A fairly average fiddle player, Wills’ main strengths were being a superb bandleader and songwriter and his musical arrangement skills.
It was a bubbling gumbo of Texas fiddle tunes, rural blues, big-band jazz and just about anything else that could get the floor moving. Wills was one of the first country performers to absorb the full impact of radio, which in the 1920s and 1930s began exposing the rural country people to urban music. His recordings flouted the ideal of pure country that attached itself to the likes of the Carter Family, who made their first recordings at about the time Wills began working as a dancehall fiddler. He went fully electric years before anybody else, and helped make the steel guitar a standard instrument for country music.
In the early days of the Playboys, most of the vocals were handled by Tommy Duncan, a singer possessing a fluid baritone voice that was equally at home with smooth ballads and blues tunes. The combination of reeds, brass and twin fiddles gave the Playboys a full and rich sound and by the early 1940s it had grown in size to an 18-piece band. A vocal version of San Antonio Rose, recorded in 1940, brought Wills and the band national acclaim, leading to film appearances in Take Me Back To Oklahoma and Go West Young Lady. By the late 1940s the Texas Playboys were outselling the top swing bands such as those of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.
During the post-war period, with the popularity of big bands generally fading, Wills was forced to use a smaller band and began featuring fiddles, electric steel guitar and string instruments more prominently. He continued to tour extensively until the mid-1960s, when he suffered a heart attack, and had to cut back on personal appearances, but continued recording until shortly before he suffered a severe stroke in December 1973. He never regained consciousness, although his actual death did not occur until May 13, 1975.
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1968 and was honoured by the State Of Texas on May 30, 1969. His music lives on through the Playboys reforming several times since his death and many younger singers recreating the Wills’ sound both on record and in live shows. The legacy of Bob Wills would be less distinguished, less memorable, and certainly less fun if his band had not consisted of extraordinary individuals like Jesse Ashlock, Sleepy Johnson, Leon McAuliffe, Eldon Shamblin, Noel Boggs, Johnny Gimble, Jimmie Widener, Herb Remington, etc. Listening to Bob Wills’ classic recordings you will fully understand why our great-grandparents eyes twinkled when they reminisced their dancing days to such classics as Faded Love, Stay All Night and St. Louis Blues. It is timeless music that just cannot be equalled. What was so great about Bob Wills was the diversity of his music. He did a great job of combining country, swing, jazz and blues into a musical blend with across-the-board appeal.
Recommended Listening
The Golden Era (Columbia Historic Edition 1987)
The King Of Western Swing (Charly 1983)
Anthology 1935-1973 (Rhino 1992)
The Longhorn Recordings (Bear Family 1994)
Faded Love 1947-1973 (Bear Family box set 2007)
San Antonio Rose 1932-1947 (Bear Family box set 2000)"
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price
~1006181:SCPO Morris Ramsey] SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
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