Showing posts with label texas playboys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label texas playboys. Show all posts

Who was James Robert Wills?


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, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing 

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.

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. 

He was born on a cotton farm in Kosse, Limestone County, Texas.  His  parents were of English and Irish ancestry.  His dad played the violin, so he learned a lot of those early tunes he played from his father.  He spent his teens and twenties playing the violin and working as a barber.

In 1930, he met Milton Brown, a singer/violin player and formed the Wills Fiddle band, changing their name to that of their sponsor at the time, the Light Crust Doughboys.   Brown left the band in 1932 to form the Musical Brownies, the first true Western swing band. Brown added twin fiddles, tenor banjo and slap bass, pointing the music in the direction of swing, which they played on local radio and at dancehalls.  Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies, true Western Swing:


After Brown left, Wills formed The Playboys and in 1934, left Texas to Oklahoma City.  Wills soon settled the renamed Texas Playboys in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and began broadcasting noon shows over the 50,000-watt KVOO radio station, from the stage of Cain's Ballroom.

Wills largely sang blues and sentimental ballads. "One Star Rag", "Rat Cheese Under the Hill", "Take Me Back to Tulsa", "Basin Street Blues", "Steel Guitar Rag", and "Trouble in Mind" were some of the songs in the extensive repertory played by Wills and the Playboys.

Take me Back to Tulsa: (Ragtime Annie fiddle introduction)


In 1940, Wills, along with the Texas Playboys, co-starred with Tex Ritter in Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Altogether, Wills appeared in nineteen films, including The Lone Prairie (1942), Riders of the Northwest Mounted (1943), Saddles and Sagebrush (1943), The Vigilantes Ride (1943), The Last Horseman (1944), Rhythm Round-Up (1945), Blazing the Western Trail (1945), and Lawless Empire (1945).

Tex Ritter and Bob Wills in Take Me Back to Oklahoma: 


1942 - 1948, Wills became a superstar.  He commanded enormous fees playing dances there, and began to make more creative use of electric guitars to replace the big horn sections the Tulsa band had boasted. For a very brief period in 1944, the Wills band included 23 members

In 1945, Wills' dances were drawing larger crowds than dances put on by Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. That year, he lived in both Santa Monica and Fresno, California. In 1947, he opened the Wills Point nightclub in Sacramento, California and continued touring the Southwest and Pacific Northwest from Texas to Washington State. In Sacramento, he broadcast shows over KFBK, a station whose reach encompassed much of the American West. Wills was in such high demand that venues would book him even on weeknights, because they knew the show would still be a draw.

Having lived a lavish lifestyle in California, Wills moved back to Oklahoma City in 1949, then went back on the road to maintain his payroll and Wills Point. He opened a second club, the Bob Wills Ranch House in Dallas, Texas. Turning the club over to managers, later revealed to be dishonest, left Wills in desperate financial straits with heavy debts to the IRS for back taxes. This caused him to sell many assets, including the rights to "New San Antonio Rose". It wrecked him financially.

In 1950, Wills had two top 10 hits, "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love". After 1950, radio stations began to increasingly specialize in one form or another of commercially popular music. Although usually labelled "country and western", Wills did not fit into the style played on popular country and western stations, which typically played music in the Nashville sound. Neither did he fit into the conventional sound of pop stations, although he played a good deal of pop music


After two heart attacks, in 1965 he dissolved the Texas Playboys (who briefly continued as an independent unit) to perform solo with house bands. While he did well in Las Vegas and other areas, and made records for the Kapp Records label, he was largely a forgotten figure—even though inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. A 1969 stroke left his right side paralyzed, ending his active career. He did, however, recover sufficiently to appear in a wheelchair at various Wills tributes held in the early 1970s. A revival of interest in his music, spurred by Merle Haggard's 1970 album A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World, led to a 1973 reunion album, teaming Wills, who spoke with difficulty, with key members of the early band, as well as Haggard.

Wills died in Fort Worth of pneumonia on May 13, 1975.

Wills' style influenced performers Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and The Strangers and helped to spawn a style of music now known as the Bakersfield Sound.  


As well as younger "revival" bands like Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen plus the growing popularity of longtime Wills disciple and fan Willie Nelson: 



Some of his music:

As a preface to the following tunes.  I have studied them well (Adam here), and would like to teach them to you.  We can learn them on the fiddle, which is the instrument Bob Wills played, or the mandolin.  Either is fine.  Contact me using the form on the sidebar, or by emailing info@sweetmusicstudio.net if you would like to learn


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Who was James Robert Wills?


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, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing 

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.

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. 

He was born on a cotton farm in Kosse, Limestone County, Texas.  His  parents were of English and Irish ancestry.  His dad played the violin, so he learned a lot of those early tunes he played from his father.  He spent his teens and twenties playing the violin and working as a barber.

In 1930, he met Milton Brown, a singer/violin player and formed the Wills Fiddle band, changing their name to that of their sponsor at the time, the Light Crust Doughboys.   Brown left the band in 1932 to form the Musical Brownies, the first true Western swing band. Brown added twin fiddles, tenor banjo and slap bass, pointing the music in the direction of swing, which they played on local radio and at dancehalls.  Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies, true Western Swing:


After Brown left, Wills formed The Playboys and in 1934, left Texas to Oklahoma City.  Wills soon settled the renamed Texas Playboys in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and began broadcasting noon shows over the 50,000-watt KVOO radio station, from the stage of Cain's Ballroom.

Wills largely sang blues and sentimental ballads. "One Star Rag", "Rat Cheese Under the Hill", "Take Me Back to Tulsa", "Basin Street Blues", "Steel Guitar Rag", and "Trouble in Mind" were some of the songs in the extensive repertory played by Wills and the Playboys.

Take me Back to Tulsa: (Ragtime Annie fiddle introduction)


In 1940, Wills, along with the Texas Playboys, co-starred with Tex Ritter in Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Altogether, Wills appeared in nineteen films, including The Lone Prairie (1942), Riders of the Northwest Mounted (1943), Saddles and Sagebrush (1943), The Vigilantes Ride (1943), The Last Horseman (1944), Rhythm Round-Up (1945), Blazing the Western Trail (1945), and Lawless Empire (1945).

Tex Ritter and Bob Wills in Take Me Back to Oklahoma: 


1942 - 1948, Wills became a superstar.  He commanded enormous fees playing dances there, and began to make more creative use of electric guitars to replace the big horn sections the Tulsa band had boasted. For a very brief period in 1944, the Wills band included 23 members

In 1945, Wills' dances were drawing larger crowds than dances put on by Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. That year, he lived in both Santa Monica and Fresno, California. In 1947, he opened the Wills Point nightclub in Sacramento, California and continued touring the Southwest and Pacific Northwest from Texas to Washington State. In Sacramento, he broadcast shows over KFBK, a station whose reach encompassed much of the American West. Wills was in such high demand that venues would book him even on weeknights, because they knew the show would still be a draw.

Having lived a lavish lifestyle in California, Wills moved back to Oklahoma City in 1949, then went back on the road to maintain his payroll and Wills Point. He opened a second club, the Bob Wills Ranch House in Dallas, Texas. Turning the club over to managers, later revealed to be dishonest, left Wills in desperate financial straits with heavy debts to the IRS for back taxes. This caused him to sell many assets, including the rights to "New San Antonio Rose". It wrecked him financially.

In 1950, Wills had two top 10 hits, "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love". After 1950, radio stations began to increasingly specialize in one form or another of commercially popular music. Although usually labelled "country and western", Wills did not fit into the style played on popular country and western stations, which typically played music in the Nashville sound. Neither did he fit into the conventional sound of pop stations, although he played a good deal of pop music


After two heart attacks, in 1965 he dissolved the Texas Playboys (who briefly continued as an independent unit) to perform solo with house bands. While he did well in Las Vegas and other areas, and made records for the Kapp Records label, he was largely a forgotten figure—even though inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. A 1969 stroke left his right side paralyzed, ending his active career. He did, however, recover sufficiently to appear in a wheelchair at various Wills tributes held in the early 1970s. A revival of interest in his music, spurred by Merle Haggard's 1970 album A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World, led to a 1973 reunion album, teaming Wills, who spoke with difficulty, with key members of the early band, as well as Haggard.

Wills died in Fort Worth of pneumonia on May 13, 1975.

Wills' style influenced performers Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and The Strangers and helped to spawn a style of music now known as the Bakersfield Sound.  


As well as younger "revival" bands like Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen plus the growing popularity of longtime Wills disciple and fan Willie Nelson: 



Some of his music:

As a preface to the following tunes.  I have studied them well (Adam here), and would like to teach them to you.  We can learn them on the fiddle, which is the instrument Bob Wills played, or the mandolin.  Either is fine.  Contact me using the form on the sidebar, or by emailing info@sweetmusicstudio.net if you would like to learn


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