Violation Podcast - Bob Wills Makes Us Holler
On this, our third violation podcast, we finally get around to talking about the late, great King of Western Swing: Bob Wills.
While wills didn’t invent Western Swing, he was most certainly the most recognizable face of the genre. Wills was a musical melting pot of sorts, combining traditional string music with the horns and phrasing of jazz ad big band music, and tossing in a good dose of Tejano, gospel, and anything else he could find. The result was a truly unique and utterly danceable music. On top of that, he arranged or wrote some of the most memorable and often-covered songs in 20th century popular music.
Wills’ secret was surrounding himself with some pretty hot musicians: Tiny Moore on mandolin, Leon McAauliffe on peddle steel, and the Great Tommy Duncan on vocals (just to name a few). The players, known as the Texas Playboys, delighted audiences throughout the South and West, and influenced a whole slew on up and coming musicians.
On this episode we each pick three of our favorite Bob Wills performances and discuss why Bob Wills’ music is as vital today as it was almost 100 years ago.
No recommendation on the episode.
THINGS WE DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE
In 1931, the Light Crust Doughboys were introduced to the world on KFJZ-AM in Fort Worth .
Here’s the original lineup of the Light Crust Doughboys, circa 1931. (Pictured L to R) Milton Brown, Derwood Brown, radio announcer Truett Kimsey, Bob Wills, and Herman Arnspiger.
In 1932, Light Crust Doughboys recorded a single under the name the “Fort Worth Doughboys” at the Jefferson Hotel in Dallas Texas. Derwood Brown had been replaced by Sleepy Johnson.
The A side was a Milton Brown’s adaptation of the1930 blues number “Nancy Jane”. The B-side (listen below) was a Milton Brown original “Sunbonnet Sue.
The Light Crust Doughboys in 1933 after Milton Brown had left.
Pictured (L to R) “Pappy” O’Daniel (sponsor), Bob Wills, Herman Arnspiger, Tommy Duncan, “Sleepy” Johnson, and their driver.
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys with one of their first buses in front of Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa, OK, circa 1935.
Listen to the Bob Wills version of “Little Joe the Wrangler” (mentioned on this episode). It’s song about an orphan who is taken in and put to work by a group of cowboys and who dies when his horse falls on him during a stampede, that the Texas Playboys somehow manage to make sound happy.
Poster for the first motion picture appearance of Bob Will and His Texas Playboys: Take Me Back To Oklahoma. That’s Bob in the top right.
Here’s a perfect example of Wills’ characteristic bouncing around during a performance. Watch Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys perform “Toodleumbo” from the 1943 movie Saddles and Sagebrush. Leon McAuliffe is singing lead here, because Tommy Duncan had joined the Army in 1942.
Watch Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys perform “Time Changes Everything” from the 1945 film, Blazing the Western Trail.
In 1960, Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan reunited to try to rekindle some of that by-gone magic and recorded this LP. Buck Owens happened to see the cover and it inspired him to write one of the greatest country songs ever recorded: “Together Again.”
Merle Haggard was a big Bob Wills fan. In 1970 he recorded A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World, an album of Bob Wills standards that he recorded with several of the surviving Texas Playboys.
In 1973, Haggard went into the studio with Bob Wills and six of the remaining Texas Playboys to record withe LP For The Last Time, Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys. Sadly, Wills suffered a massive stroke after the first day of recording, that left him partially paralyzed, and unable to communicate. The King of Western Swing passed away on May 13, 1975.
The Rollings Stones played live at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas in 2005. Of course they had to pay homage to the great man himself.
