TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I wanted to share a podcast that I think you are going to love.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's called American Song Catcher.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's an educational documentary-style podcast that preserves and connects the cultural heritage of American roots music through stories and song.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's hosted by folk musician and musicologist Nicholas Edward Williams.
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[SPEAKER_00]: American songcatcher weaves stories across the spectrum of traditional music.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To artists who shaped and played integral roles in different forms of blues, country, jazz, bluegrass, western gospel, old time, and the folk music that is derived from it all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On this episode of American songcatcher, you will hear the story behind the King of Western Swing, Bob Wills.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the most influential and iconic band leaders and musicians of the 1930s to 1950s, Bob came from a humble life of a poor, share-cropping family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was deeply influenced by old-time and breakdown fiddle through his Texas State Champion family of settlers in his father and his uncle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bob also loved all the turn of the century 1920s black music, and this conference of cultures would help him create that craze that became Western swing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The details of his journey to get there will surprise you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the episode, host Nicholas Edward Williams has a special message about re-string Appalachian.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Thank you, Izme.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Do you have a quality instrument laying around the house not being used?
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[SPEAKER_12]: Does someone you know have more instruments than they need?
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[SPEAKER_12]: Consider supporting Restring Appalachia.
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[SPEAKER_12]: We're a 501C3 non-profit that gives free quality instruments back to people that lose them from natural disasters, and we're an instrument resource for music education organizations.
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[SPEAKER_12]: To get involved, head to RestringAppalachia.org.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And now, here's American songcatcher, featuring the story of the King of Western Swing, Bob Wills.
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[SPEAKER_12]: You're listening to American songcatcher, tracing the roots of American music from its cultured past, to today's artists playing it forward.
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[SPEAKER_12]: I'm Folk Musician, Nicholas Edward Williams.
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[SPEAKER_05]: Never have one girl, at a time, we always have seven eight and nine, but now they're gone.
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[SPEAKER_05]: We don't with it, we're sitting on top of the world.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Born the first of ten children, to poor sure cropping farmers, James Robert Willes, better known as Bob Willes, came into the world on March 6, 1905, and Co-C Texas.
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[SPEAKER_12]: From the get-go, Willes grew up under influences that would be evident his entire life.
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[SPEAKER_12]: First, his music always reflected the western world that he grew up in.
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[SPEAKER_12]: There's dust and dance halls in every bar of his music.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Second, the fiddle was key to his sound.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Aside from the human voice, the Texas fiddle was the first sound that Bob Ever heard.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Both grandfather and several uncles played the fiddle.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And his father, John, was a Texas state champion, known for his breakdown style, connected to Scottish Reels and English-squared dancing, which got people moving.
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[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to play you a no break down, the kind that you can just roll up the rug, move back the chairs, and turn on.
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[SPEAKER_05]: You know, one of the old deep and the heart of Texas tombs, here it is.
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[SPEAKER_05]: Let's go boys a break down.
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[SPEAKER_12]: The fiddle was especially popular on the front here because it was easy to carry on horseback.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In 1913, his family migrated to West Texas after years of hard conditions in limestone county.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Along the way, they stopped at cotton camps, where Bob would work alongside black children, who knew labor songs.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In the evenings, they all played music with a mixture of guitars, menalins, fiddles and trumpets to entertain themselves and Bob learned their songs.
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[SPEAKER_12]: La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
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[SPEAKER_12]: To help make ends meet, the family would play for dances, and make tips all across East and West Texas.
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[SPEAKER_12]: His uncle John played a country fiddle, and around eight years old, Bob had learned to play back in rhythm.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And when he played the fiddle, Bob was forced to use all of the bow, not just the upper end, as most breakdown fiddleers do, and he developed a long bow technique because he was so small.
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[SPEAKER_11]: One night in 1915, near Turkey, Texas, the family was scheduled to play a dance.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob got there ahead of his
Load full transcript
uncle and everybody else, and a huge rainstorm came and flooded the creek, preventing the rest of the family from crossing.
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[SPEAKER_12]: The crowd at the ranch house was wondering if and how they were going to have a dance.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob said,
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[SPEAKER_12]: I know six tunes, and at 10 years old, he played those six tunes over and over again, all night long.
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[SPEAKER_14]: Western swing can be traced back to a wide array of sounds.
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[SPEAKER_12]: From 19th century European immigrants who brought folk and polka music to Mexican
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[SPEAKER_12]: And most significantly, African-American forms of music that rose across the south from Texas to Mississippi to Georgia.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Notable black musicians who have had a hand in influencing its sound.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Our turn of the century ragtime by East Texas composer and pianist Scott Joplin, the father of Memphis Blues, W.C. handy, the New Orleans jazz of Louis Armstrong, even the soulful vocals of the Empress of the Blues,
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[SPEAKER_12]: And as late teens, Bob actually traveled 35 miles on horseback, from the river's new turkey Texas, to children's Texas, to watch Bestie Smith perform in person, often stated as one of his favorite singers.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob later said, I believe Bestie was about the best I've ever heard or seen.
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[SPEAKER_12]: soon after at age 21, Bob got married to Edna Posey and spent his days as a farmhand, though we quickly found out that it was ruining his hands, and therefore interrupting his ability to play fiddle.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Despite being widely considered as a top fiddler in West Texas, by 1929 Bob Still wasn't sure how he could make a living playing music.
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[SPEAKER_12]: He spent years working as a barber, trying his hand as an insurance salesman, and fiddling at dances.
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[SPEAKER_12]: One day in 1930, Bob was arrested in Turkey, Texas for public intoxication and was humiliated.
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[SPEAKER_12]: He vowed never to return and moved his growing family to Fort Worth that same year and took a job with a medicine show in Blackface as a comedian and fiddle player.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In 1930, a guitar playing friend from Minstrel Shows, named Herman Orange Spiker, started teeming up with Bob at house dances, as did jazz and blues singer and cigar salesman Milton Brown, who brought his brother and guitar player, Durwood Brown.
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[SPEAKER_12]: It was the great depression, and many people were at home listening to the radio for comfort.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In due course, they became the Aladdin-Lamp companies, Aladdin-Ladies, on WBAP, Fort Worth.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Later that same year, the group was hired to promote Burst Mills-like crust flour on WBAP.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And the band was renamed to the Like Crest Do Bois, and given their own show, which became very popular.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Wills was getting paid $15 a week, around $500 in today's money, which was enough to keep
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[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a dream come that I'm from Duma's Bay If y'all are to see me do my best While pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,
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[SPEAKER_12]: The band was constantly evolving as they tried out new sounds, different instruments, musical styles.
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[SPEAKER_12]: It was the jazz age.
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[SPEAKER_12]: The Dixie land influence evident early on in the use of the banjo was evolving, and to the uninhibited swing.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Found a New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles clubs.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob began to incorporate the swinging rhythms that he heard on the radio from New Orleans, jazz, and blues, and to the old-time fiddle music that he grew up with.
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[SPEAKER_15]: The combination was unique, powerful, and it was a sensation.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Their popularity grew, and W. Lee O'Daniel, the manager of the Mill that was sponsoring them, saw an opportunity, and began to host the radio show, and write songs for them.
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[SPEAKER_12]: and would ride Bob's success on radio to eventually become governor of Texas as well as the direct inspiration for the overbearing character of the same name played by actor Charles Derning in Ombrah there were at that I got Nadie Well said, Junior we could hire us a little fella even smaller in Stokes' You?
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[SPEAKER_16]: Slope short of second!
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[SPEAKER_16]: Why?
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[SPEAKER_16]: We look like a bunch of Johnny come literally bragging on our own magic Don't matter how stupid
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[SPEAKER_12]: Papio Daniel didn't allow the light crust dough boys to play ranch dances while they were under contract, which was a huge part of their income.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Milton Brown had it, and by the fall of 1932, he and his brother left the band to form their own influential outfit, Milton Brown and his musical brownies.
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[SPEAKER_12]: When Milton Brown left, Bob was seeking another singer to replace him.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Someone that could match his versatility to sing blues, jazz, country, and cowboy songs.
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[SPEAKER_12]: He auditioned to 67 singers before he brought in pianists and vocalists, Tommy Duncan, who had been singing for tips at a root beer stand.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Tommy would eventually become one of the most important singers in Western swing.
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[SPEAKER_08]: I'm walking in the shadow of the blue Because I can't get along with you Papio Daniel promoted the light crustow boys until they became the most popular radio program in the Southwest
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob admired Papio Daniel's ability to promote, but everything else rubbed in the wrong way.
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[SPEAKER_12]: It was bad enough that Papio looked down on them playing dances, but he also despised drinking.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And Bob was a drinker.
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[SPEAKER_12]: He'd already missed a few radio shows, but when Bob wrecked a promotional flower mill truck, Papio Daniel had it, and fired him from the doughboys.
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[SPEAKER_05]: What's in the bubbles of my beer?
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[SPEAKER_05]: What's coming, Tommy?
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[SPEAKER_05]: Get the load down on it.
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[SPEAKER_09]: You're night in a bar alone, I'm sitting.
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[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah?
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[SPEAKER_09]: A park from the left there and the chair.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Tommy and Kermit Whalen, who was now playing Pettlestil guitar and bass, decided to follow Bob to Waco, rather than stay with Papio Daniel and the Do Bois.
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[SPEAKER_12]: They got a gig on Waco radio, billing themselves as, formerly, the Lightcrustow Bois.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Though they weren't paid, they could advertise their ranch dances.
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[SPEAKER_12]: A local businessman named OW Mayo started booking shows for them, and within a few months in Waco, they were making more in one night than they did in one week with the doughboys.
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[SPEAKER_12]: They began calling themselves the playboys, and performed around Waco for three months, before heading to Oklahoma City in early 1934.
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[SPEAKER_17]: the W.O.
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[SPEAKER_17]: Daniel Flauer's on the report where Texas is proud to present his present title, Daniel, and his hillbilly boys.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Pappio Daniel had organized his flower company to make, quote, hillbilly flower and began to call his new band The Hillbilly Boys.
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[SPEAKER_12]: The slogan, Pass the Biscuits' Pappie, made O'Daniel a household name throughout Texas, which led him to eventually becoming two-time governor, and a U.S. senator.
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[SPEAKER_12]: O'Daniel realized that
nobody could sell his flower products better than Bob Will's had, so he did everything that he could to deter Bob and get him back to Fort Worth.
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[SPEAKER_12]: When he found out that Bob was advertising his new band as formerly the LightCrest doughboys, he followed the lawsuit.
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[SPEAKER_12]: in Oklahoma City at WKY radio, O'Daniel promised that he would buy airtime if they would cancel Bob Will's show and the radio station did just that.
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[SPEAKER_12]: So Bob and the other musicians went to Tulsa where they heard about an opportunity to record for KV O'O Radio.
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[UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's beautiful.
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[UNKNOWN]: Wow.
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[UNKNOWN]: Hi.
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[SPEAKER_12]: KV-O-O was a 25,000-watt radio station that served a huge audience all over Tulsa, and a surrounding area of about 50 miles.
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[SPEAKER_12]: At midnight on February 9, 1934, they played for a one-hour child broadcast, and were soon given their own daily show.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Papio Daniel tried to sway KV-O with buying airtime again to cancel the broadcasts, but they declined.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In KV-O-O and Tulsa became the voice of Texas swing, as it was beginning to be called.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Wills and his Texas playboys was their new name, and they continued adding musicians who played by ear, not just sight-reading.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Including rhythm guitarists, increments brother, June Whalen, Tender Bandjuist, Fiddler, and Bob's brother, Johnny Lee Wills.
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[SPEAKER_12]: He added effort stover on trumpet.
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[SPEAKER_09]: Bob's cousin and upright bassist, Sun Lansford, Zev McNally on saxophone, Al Strickland on piano, the first drummer in country music, Smokey Dakeys, and Steel Guitar Hall of Famer, Leon McCallof.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In 1935, OW Mayo started booking at Tulsa's Canes Ballroom, and it became Headquarters for broadcasting the Texas Play Boys noon day show, Monday through Saturday, as well as their Thursday and Saturday night dances.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Ever the showman, Dapper and Dashing, and his deaths in the hat, and Yoke shirt, Bob wills developed a show that brought 1,500 people to Canes, two nights a week, and hundreds to the venues that they played four nights a week on the road.
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[SPEAKER_12]: When Bob Wilson's former bandmate Milton Brown, who was considered the father of Western Swing, was tragically killed in a car accident, an April of 1936, the die was cast.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Though Milton Brown and his musical brownies was more popular than Bob and his Texas playboys at the time of his death, Milton's contributions to the establishment of Western swing have been overshadowed.
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[SPEAKER_12]: His undeniable innovations have inspired countless groups all over the state of Texas and beyond, who all modeled their sound after the musical brownies, such as Bill Boyd, Roy Newman, Jimmy Revard, Adolf Hoffner, Cliff Brunner, Leon Chappelier, and others.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In a 1960s interview, Bob Will said, Milton Brown and myself started this thing.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Every time the Bob was delighted with Tommy Duncan's singing or a lick on the pedal steel guitar by Leon McCalliff, Wills would let out a falsetto holler, which he got from the black musicians in the cotton camps of Texas when he was a boy.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In their first recording sessions with Brunswick, the producer was confused by it and asked Bob to stop talking during the recording.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In so many words, Bob replied, you asked for Bob Wills in his Texas playboys, and that's
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob's dancing and fiddling was the guide for the band's sound, which had as many as five fiddlers at a time, and borrowing from the big bands so popular at that time, included horn sections, and added a full harmonizing rhythm guitar section.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In the late 1930s, Bob Wills and OW Mayo took over the lease of Kane's Ballroom, and Mayo bought it outright in the years following.
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[SPEAKER_12]: By 1940, the Texas Playboys recordings had outsold all of the nearly 200 artists that it recorded for Brunswick.
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[SPEAKER_12]: In the band had grown to be as talented and versatile
as any swing band in the country and had a repertoire of 3,600 songs.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
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[SPEAKER_12]: While this podcast is free for you, we rely on your support as listeners to keep the show going.
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[SPEAKER_12]: If you've learned something new, we're entertained or felt moved by this program.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Please consider making a small donation, or contribute monthly with our Patreon community.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Simply put, without funding, there is no show.
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[SPEAKER_12]: to support, please visit the links in the show notes.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And for those of you who prefer a tax-exempt donation option, American songcatcher has partnered with the 501c3 non-profit music and common.
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[SPEAKER_12]: You can find that link to donate in the show notes.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Now, back to the show.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Back in 1927, while living in New Mexico, Bob Wills realized that the local Chicanos weren't dancing to his traditional fiddle breakdowns because the timing and rhythm was different.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Then he heard a traditional Mexican tune from a local Mexican fiddler, whose name is unknown.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob later said, quote, he played the Spanish two-step, and I locked the door where he couldn't get out and nobody else could get in, and I made him stay there until he taught me that.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Soon after, he wrote a Mexican flavored instrumental fiddle tune called Spanish II Step and recorded it in 1935.
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[SPEAKER_12]: At the very first, Texas Playboy's recording session.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob was asked by the record label to come up with something similar, so he rearranged Spanish two-step by reversing the bridge section to create a new song, first recorded in 1938, under the title, San Antonio Rose.
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[SPEAKER_12]: By the spring of 1940, the song was so popular,
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[SPEAKER_12]: that the publishing company owned by legendary 10-pan alley composer and lyricist, Irving Berlin, offered Will's a $300 advance to add
lyrics to the song, over $6,500 in today's money.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob didn't like the words that he came up with, so he gave the playboy's trumpet player an announcer, Everett Stover, five bucks and a jug of whiskey to come up with something better.
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[SPEAKER_12]: The publishers at Berlin didn't like the lyrics because they weren't mainstream enough, so they rewrote lyrics and published a recording without the group that sold very poorly.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Bob and the playboys recorded their version as new San Antonio Rose, which became his signature song.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And then Bing Crosby made it a million selling pop-hit in 1941, forever cemented as a standard in American music.
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[SPEAKER_09]: I went from hamburgers to steaks.
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[SPEAKER_12]: 11 years after the first recording of Spanish II Step in 1935, Bob decided to do the same thing that had made the new San Antonio Rose so successful.
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[SPEAKER_12]: And with Tommy Duncan added lyrics, they recorded it in 1946 on Columbia as new Spanish II Step, which became one of the playboy's greatest hits, staying on the charts for 23 weeks and reaching number one.
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[SPEAKER_09]: Between 1940 and 1947, Bob Willes was featured in nearly 20 movies, mostly Western B films,
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[SPEAKER_12]: The first film that featured Bob and a few band members was with Texriter, called Take Me Back to Oklahoma.
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[SPEAKER_12]: A western drama, about a fight for control over a stage line, which is an old term used for a wagon and stage coach trail, that connected western outposts in the 19th century, and is today considered one of Texriter's best films.
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[SPEAKER_12]: appearances in these films had a profound impact on the image and the sound of the Texas playboys.
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[SPEAKER_12]: Prior to this, those some members would often wear stets and hats, including Bob.
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[SPEAKER_12]: They would be dressed in unison, with coats and ties, like other dance bands of the era.
26:28.327 --> 26:36.614
[SPEAKER_12]: But as these western films began to become popular, audience wanted to see them in cowboy garb as in the movies, so they changed their look.
26:36.634 --> 26:40.037
[SPEAKER_12]: And this would forever associate them
26:40.439 --> 26:48.109
[SPEAKER_12]: And though Bob thought of himself as a leader of a jazz band, this also marked the departure from the jazz and blues influence of their early recordings.
26:48.570 --> 27:03.510
[SPEAKER_20]: And Bob dressed in full cowboy tire for the rest of his career.
27:03.777 --> 27:11.646
[SPEAKER_12]: In 1942, nearly three years into World War II, Bob and a few other members of the Texas Play Boys joined the service.
27:12.407 --> 27:27.625
[SPEAKER_12]: Before leaving, he turned over all Tulsa performances to his brother, Johnny Lee Wills, who'd been playing banjo in the Play Boys since 1934, though he was also an accomplished fiddler, giving him the chance to showcase his prowess with that instrument.
27:28.077 --> 27:38.340
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob was 37 years old when he entered the army, and he was not physically fit to stay in the military for very long, and received a medical discharge in the summer of 1943.
27:39.215 --> 27:43.181
[SPEAKER_19]: Tomorrow is Christmas, and Bob and the Texas Playboys have a well-Christmas present for you.
27:43.582 --> 27:48.169
[SPEAKER_19]: It's a big Christmas night party and dance out of the barn near Fresno starting at 830.
27:48.550 --> 27:53.177
[SPEAKER_19]: You can bring your entire family out there and have a good time and the price is only one dollar plus tax.
27:53.538 --> 27:58.065
[SPEAKER_19]: That's tomorrow night, Christmas night at the barn near Fresno for Bob Wilson and Texas Playboys.
27:58.546 --> 28:04.055
[SPEAKER_12]: After the war, with a growing taste for the big screen, Bob decided to relocate to Southern California.
28:04.756 --> 28:06.218
[SPEAKER_12]: It was the end of the Big Bandera.
28:06.586 --> 28:14.033
[SPEAKER_12]: So he reformatted the playboys to be a five to six piece group with little to no horns and highlighting electric stringed instruments.
28:14.933 --> 28:19.718
[SPEAKER_12]: He appeared in many more films and was more financially successful than at any other time in his career.
28:20.258 --> 28:22.220
[SPEAKER_12]: Stores could not keep his records on the shelves.
28:22.760 --> 28:25.443
[SPEAKER_12]: And Bob was one of the highest paid bandlanders in America.
28:26.223 --> 28:36.272
[SPEAKER_12]: The playboys toured relentlessly, breaking attendance records at dance halls across the country.
28:38.615 --> 29:00.032
[SPEAKER_07]: Rip thin and do be water I'm starting to care for you You're getting me in deep water Be careful what you do
29:01.109 --> 29:08.275
[SPEAKER_12]: In 1946, Bob moved the operation to Sacramento, California, and aimed to stop touring so much and settle down.
29:09.036 --> 29:14.441
[SPEAKER_12]: He restored an old building and turned it into a dance hall that he called Will's Point in 1948.
29:14.521 --> 29:22.068
[SPEAKER_12]: It featured an Olympic-sized swimming pool called Will's Plunge, and it was designed and marketed to be fun for the whole family.
29:22.528 --> 29:25.131
[SPEAKER_12]: No funny business allowed, just dancing and fun.
29:25.731 --> 29:31.116
[SPEAKER_12]: There are catches for kids to sleep on, hot dogs, coffee,
29:31.096 --> 29:40.690
[SPEAKER_12]: The Texas playboys were the houseband, and they slept in rooms that were built under the stage, and the club held nearly 4,000 people, with daily radio broadcasts.
29:40.950 --> 29:44.696
[SPEAKER_23]: So give a hand, the Bob Wills, and his Texas playboy.
29:50.785 --> 29:51.546
[SPEAKER_23]: Let her go, Bob.
29:52.067 --> 29:54.370
[SPEAKER_23]: Boys at Lone Star
Ray.
29:55.497 --> 30:04.667
[SPEAKER_12]: Within a year, however, the dance hall became a financial burden, and Bob's drinking, which had been an issue before, grew worse, and he started missing shows again.
30:05.748 --> 30:12.295
[SPEAKER_12]: Tommy Duncan had been covering for him time and time again, over their 15 year relationship, and it got to the point where he was too much.
30:12.916 --> 30:23.968
[SPEAKER_10]: When Bob overheard Tommy complaining about it, he fired him.
30:27.391 --> 30:45.282
[SPEAKER_10]: It's you that I am thinking of As I read the lines that to me were so sweet I remember I'm...
30:50.122 --> 30:55.098
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob decided to get on the road again and relocated back to Oklahoma City in 1949.
30:55.580 --> 30:59.693
[SPEAKER_12]: Both out of a desire to continue performing and to keep Will's point afloat.
31:00.432 --> 31:02.594
[SPEAKER_12]: In 1950, he had two top 10 hits.
31:03.295 --> 31:13.224
[SPEAKER_12]: I'd have read likes to boogie and faded love, which would become an even bigger hit, and forever associated with the legendary country singer, Patsy Klein, after she recorded the song in 1963.
31:14.365 --> 31:27.537
[SPEAKER_12]: Peaking at number seven on the country chart, with what would be her final top 10 solo single, before tragically passing away.
31:36.106 --> 31:41.687
[SPEAKER_18]: The stars above.
31:41.707 --> 31:47.449
[SPEAKER_12]: Around 1950, radio stations started to specialize in certain genres of popular music.
31:48.070 --> 32:06.358
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Wills and his Texas playboys were usually lumped in with country and western, though the music didn't actually fit on those stations, which were playing the Nashville sound, replacing the more rough, honky-talk music, with elaborate strings, sophisticated background vocals, and smooth tempos, generally found in pop music.
32:07.100 --> 32:11.867
[SPEAKER_12]: The playboys didn't fit the sound on pop stations either, even though they played pop their music.
32:12.573 --> 32:33.619
[SPEAKER_12]: The versatility of the group began to limit their commercial success, so they were forced to tour dance halls again, to make a living.
32:39.067 --> 32:46.261
[SPEAKER_12]: On the heels of a few hits, Bob opened up a second club called the Bob Will's Ranch House in Dallas, Texas, in 1950.
32:47.163 --> 32:56.080
[SPEAKER_12]: Within a few years, however, the club left him in desperate financial streets with heavy debts to the IRS for back taxes due to poor management.
32:56.330 --> 33:02.662
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob had to sell many of his assets, including the rights to New San Antonio Rose, and it wrecked him financially.
33:03.383 --> 33:19.553
[SPEAKER_12]: The venue, however, has been going ever since, as the long horn ballroom, widely considered, as the most historic music venue in Texas.
33:20.832 --> 33:34.439
[SPEAKER_05]: To play boys could draw 1,000 people on a Monday night in the early 1950s.
33:35.361 --> 33:41.153
[SPEAKER_12]: By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the dance hall audience nearly dwindled entirely.
33:41.403 --> 33:49.772
[SPEAKER_12]: The emerging rock and roll sound captured everyone's attention, with Elvis and the Beatles changing the trajectory of Western swing, essentially overnight.
33:50.553 --> 33:54.317
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob was tired anyhow, and he started focusing on family and friends.
33:54.998 --> 33:56.340
[SPEAKER_12]: When he was home, he was home.
33:56.980 --> 33:58.462
[SPEAKER_12]: Nobody in the band was allowed to visit.
33:59.143 --> 34:04.609
[SPEAKER_12]: When he was on the road, trying to scrounge a living in the few dance halls left, he called home every single day.
34:05.551 --> 34:07.234
[SPEAKER_24]: life is a musician.
34:07.334 --> 34:15.128
[SPEAKER_24]: On the road all the time, a way from home, all the hard work and I imagine a lot of time there is a lot of hard break and disappointment.
34:16.471 --> 34:21.860
[SPEAKER_24]: Let me ask you what drives a person to keep on and keep going.
34:23.523 --> 34:25.146
[SPEAKER_24]: The folks, people.
34:25.598 --> 34:26.139
[SPEAKER_05]: the people.
34:26.660 --> 34:27.922
[SPEAKER_05]: You can go out solo.
34:28.483 --> 34:29.946
[SPEAKER_05]: You can feel solo.
34:30.627 --> 34:34.154
[SPEAKER_05]: That you don't feel like you need to pick up a fiddle and bow.
34:34.174 --> 34:42.148
[SPEAKER_05]: And you walk out there and those people are out there sitting in front of you smiling and all there to have a good time.
34:43.310 --> 34:43.972
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
34:43.992 --> 34:45.835
[SPEAKER_05]: Just does something to you.
34:46.169 --> 34:53.102
[SPEAKER_12]: In the late 1950s, the Playboy's band expanded and added a horn section and a new vocalist named Leon Rausch.
34:53.843 --> 34:58.713
[SPEAKER_12]: The first one back to Tulsa, and then they got enough bookings in Las Vegas to move there in 1959.
34:58.733 --> 35:09.072
[SPEAKER_12]: From 1960 to 1962, Bob reunited with vocalist Tommy Duncan, whom he said many times was his favorite singer that he ever worked with.
35:09.929 --> 35:32.005
[SPEAKER_12]: Notably, they released a record under the name Bob Willes and Tommy Duncan and the Texas Playboys for the album together again.
35:33.217 --> 35:38.067
[SPEAKER_06]: Was the love you gave to me?
35:39.549 --> 35:39.870
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll go on.
35:40.090 --> 35:43.898
[SPEAKER_06]: That sounds wonderful, let's hear some more.
35:43.918 --> 35:47.485
[SPEAKER_06]: I had my chance, but now I suffer.
35:47.866 --> 35:50.331
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I wouldn't say that, no, no.
35:50.351 --> 35:55.140
[SPEAKER_06]: My heart is filled with misery.
35:56.605 --> 36:03.896
[SPEAKER_12]: In 1962, Bob had a heart attack, signaling the first of many health issues that would ale him for the remaining days.
36:04.798 --> 36:11.027
[SPEAKER_12]: He disbanded the Texas Playboys after 30 years, and began occasionally performing solo with a backing band.
36:11.828 --> 36:13.731
[SPEAKER_12]: Even
the Western swing wasn't popular anymore.
36:14.232 --> 36:17.637
[SPEAKER_12]: He was regarded as a living legend among the country and western community.
36:18.479 --> 36:21.904
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob believed that he and his music were Western, not country.
36:22.390 --> 36:28.029
[SPEAKER_12]: So it was something of a surprise and a pleasure when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968.
36:28.069 --> 36:35.033
[SPEAKER_05]: Granddad, what do you think?
36:35.924 --> 36:42.192
[SPEAKER_05]: No wonder Mr Johnson had been insistent for eight months, I come with him down here, and I thought I didn't want to, I just wasn't able.
36:42.633 --> 36:44.816
[SPEAKER_05]: Bodies as you go in there, I'll pay you away.
36:45.396 --> 36:47.800
[SPEAKER_05]: So he's paid me away and I'm here.
36:47.840 --> 36:51.384
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks to you, words can't express hot beer.
36:51.404 --> 37:00.256
[SPEAKER_05]: If I knew you'd get it, then I'll be back with you.
37:00.276 --> 37:03.400
[SPEAKER_12]: Also in 1968, the Texas State Legislature,
37:03.582 --> 37:07.646
[SPEAKER_12]: honored Bob Wills for his contributions to American music.
37:07.666 --> 37:12.250
[SPEAKER_12]: By the next year, worn out from years on the road, Bob had a crippling stroke.
37:13.251 --> 37:22.160
[SPEAKER_12]: It looked like he might have taken his final bow, but instead, by 1971, he recovered enough to travel occasionally and appear at tribute concerts.
37:23.001 --> 37:32.290
[SPEAKER_12]: He had one landmark event in recording left, a two-disk reunion of Bob Wills and his longtime
37:34.497 --> 37:37.487
[SPEAKER_18]: Okay, spunky, we're rowing.
38:00.653 --> 38:06.799
[SPEAKER_12]: These recordings also included a superfan, Murl Haggard, growing up in Bikersfield, California.
38:07.340 --> 38:14.227
[SPEAKER_12]: Murl had written his bike to go and see the playboy's life, but he ended up listening through an open window because he couldn't afford a ticket.
38:14.547 --> 38:29.462
[SPEAKER_21]: But a lot of my clothes came from the Western time, country Western music, good, blah blah
38:30.134 --> 38:35.920
[SPEAKER_12]: It was a grand reunion for the Texas Playboys, with members from the 1930s to the 1960s.
38:36.621 --> 38:40.365
[SPEAKER_12]: And for some, it had been 30 years since they performed with Bob.
38:41.266 --> 38:47.573
[SPEAKER_12]: Now in a wheelchair, he sat among them, has delighted Ahas punctuating solo after solo.
38:48.334 --> 38:57.964
[SPEAKER_12]: Exhausted after directing six recordings, Bob Willes took his leave with the promise to return for the next day's session.
39:01.370 --> 39:02.432
[SPEAKER_12]: but he didn't make it back.
39:03.112 --> 39:04.695
[SPEAKER_12]: His self declined quickly that night.
39:05.235 --> 39:08.240
[SPEAKER_12]: And within a few days, had another stroke when he was in the hospital.
39:08.300 --> 39:15.770
[SPEAKER_12]: Disparing that they were losing their beloved boss man, the band finished the recording
the next day, some with tears in their eyes.
39:16.832 --> 39:22.580
[SPEAKER_12]: That Dallas, 1973 recording session, was indeed the last time that the band would be with Bob Willes.
39:22.600 --> 39:26.466
[SPEAKER_12]: 38 years after their first session in the same city.
39:27.467 --> 39:30.972
[SPEAKER_12]: He soon suffered another stroke,
39:31.171 --> 39:35.197
[SPEAKER_12]: unable to communicate and co-mentose for the last two months of his life.
39:36.258 --> 39:41.126
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Will's passed away in a Fort Worth nursing home on May 13, 1975.
39:41.927 --> 39:52.302
[SPEAKER_12]: His grave lies in Tulsa with a plaque that says, deep within my heart lies a melody.
39:53.362 --> 40:19.656
[SPEAKER_09]: Today, Bob Will's is still the King of Western Swing, and his birth, not bringing, could hardly be less regal.
40:20.328 --> 40:23.313
[SPEAKER_12]: He was born and raised on a family farm in West Texas.
40:23.994 --> 40:33.749
[SPEAKER_12]: There was no reason to believe that anyone from there would create a new genre of music that fused country in jazz melodies and rhythms with urban and rural sensibilities.
40:34.811 --> 40:41.982
[SPEAKER_12]: From the Great Depression through the 1940s, Bob Willes and his Texas playboys were the most popular dance band in the Southwest.
40:42.417 --> 40:49.985
[SPEAKER_12]: Their amalgamation of ragtime, traditional fiddle tunes, New Orleans jazz, blues, mariachi, and big band sound.
40:50.325 --> 40:52.287
[SPEAKER_12]: What's the foundation of Western swing?
40:52.908 --> 41:12.407
[SPEAKER_01]: The sound we call Western swing is the legacy of one man, the late Bob Wheels, and tonight Bob's former Texas playboys have come from Tulsa, Houston, Sacramento, Chicago, Fresno, and Los Angeles, joined together with Murrell Haggard from Bakersfield to preserve the legend of the King of Western swing, Bob Wheels.
41:12.775 --> 41:19.822
[SPEAKER_20]: The Texas Playboys are on the air.
41:19.842 --> 41:24.247
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob was married six times and divorced five times from 1935 to 1942.
41:26.068 --> 41:35.058
[SPEAKER_12]: He was twice married to and twice divorced from Mary Helen Brown, the widow of Bob's ex-band member and the father of Western swing, Milton Brown.
41:36.139 --> 41:37.500
[SPEAKER_12]: He finally found happiness.
41:37.632 --> 41:48.115
[SPEAKER_12]: When he married Betty Anderson in 1942, whom he would spend the rest of his life with, have three children, and over 20 years, moved the family 14 times.
41:50.592 --> 42:09.495
[SPEAKER_09]: Please, don't leave me anymore Darling, don't die, things are so sad, my dear For you, they only wandered out of your land Okay, do you tell it, I'm sincere
42:09.813 --> 42:13.539
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Willes took great care of the musicians in the Texas Playboys.
42:14.240 --> 42:18.708
[SPEAKER_12]: In Tulsa, they were paid far more than any musicians in big bands of that size.
42:19.289 --> 42:26.100
[SPEAKER_12]: And during the Dust Bowl decade, and at the tail end of the Great Depression, Bob constantly gave them raises without the masking.
42:26.705 --> 42:30.148
[SPEAKER_12]: Over 200 musicians, Grace, the Texas Playboy's lineup.
42:30.789 --> 42:55.311
[SPEAKER_12]: In the list of legendary players, reads like a who's who listing of Western swing's top musicians, including Fiddlers, Johnny Gimble, and Keith Coleman, one of the greatest first-generation steel players, Leon McCollough, country music's first drummer, Smokey Dickus, pianist Al Strickland, and guitarist Elden Chamblin, who became widely recognized as one of the masters of his instrument.
42:58.042 --> 43:04.752
[SPEAKER_25]: and grew up on music that we call Western Swings.
43:04.772 --> 43:09.899
[SPEAKER_25]: If no matter who's in Austin, Bob will just still again.
43:09.979 --> 43:14.606
[SPEAKER_25]: Yeah.
43:14.626 --> 43:14.726
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.
43:14.746 --> 43:17.650
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Willes had a profound influence on country music.
43:17.931 --> 43:20.134
[SPEAKER_12]: That still has ripple effects today.
43:20.401 --> 43:36.250
[SPEAKER_12]: Musicians who cite him as a heavy inspiration include Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and his backing band The Strangers, Whalen Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and countless others.
43:37.124 --> 43:51.788
[SPEAKER_12]: By making Bakersfield California a regular stop in his prim years, Bob helped create a sub-genre of country music known as the Bakersfield Sound, with elements of rock and roll, hunky-tunk style country, electric instrumentation, and backbeats.
43:53.351 --> 44:00.583
[SPEAKER_12]: Quote, it don't matter who's in Austin, Bob Willes is still the king, William Jennings saying, 70 years after Bob Willes's birth.
44:04.090 --> 44:08.616
[SPEAKER_02]: Now be glad when you did the rest of you.
44:09.057 --> 44:14.745
[SPEAKER_02]: All you have to do, all you have to think of the dead.
44:14.765 --> 44:17.528
[SPEAKER_02]: You leave the dirty dough, all you know.
44:17.709 --> 44:23.296
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to know just what we got, got good rhythm of swinging high.
44:23.476 --> 44:26.841
[SPEAKER_02]: All you know, all you know, you take the rest of you.
44:28.458 --> 44:35.793
[SPEAKER_12]: The Bob Wills birthday celebration is held every year in March, with a Western swing concert and dance at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa.
44:36.735 --> 44:44.712
[SPEAKER_12]: Every April since 1972, thousands of people from all over the world gather in Turkey Texas to celebrate Bob Wills Day.
44:44.978 --> 44:53.029
[SPEAKER_12]: The Greenville Chamber of Commerce hosts an annual Bob Wilson Festival in Contest, every November in downtown Greenville, Texas.
44:54.091 --> 45:07.189
[SPEAKER_12]: Bob Wilson has been inducted into the Nashville Slyngraders Hall of Fame, the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the country music hall of fame, the rock and roll hall of fame, and he in the Texas Play Boys were given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
45:30.507 --> 45:38.756
[SPEAKER_13]: So, people say a man is made out of mud.
45:38.776 --> 45:49.848
[SPEAKER_13]: A bold man's made out of muscle and blood, muscle and blood, and skin and bones, a mine that's a weekend, a back that's strong, you load six.
45:49.868 --> 45:52.211
[SPEAKER_12]: That's all for episode five of season three.
45:52.911 --> 45:58.017
[SPEAKER_12]: Huge thanks to author Brent Davis for volunteering your time on this piece of music history.
45:58.351 --> 46:04.278
[SPEAKER_12]: To support this program, join the Patreon community, or send a one-time donation at the links in the show notes.
46:05.280 --> 46:12.809
[SPEAKER_12]: Find American songcatcher on Instagram, at American Songcatcher, and if you're using Apple Podcasts, please make a rating in review.
46:13.830 --> 46:18.777
[SPEAKER_12]: A massive thanks to our community on Patreon for the continued support of this independent program.
46:19.858 --> 46:23.903
[SPEAKER_12]: Our intro song is paid day by Mrs. B. John Hurt from the today album.
46:24.170 --> 46:30.256
[SPEAKER_12]: Our outro song is 16 tons, performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford, originally written by Mulchravis.
46:31.257 --> 46:39.426
[SPEAKER_12]: This episode was produced, edited, recorded, and distributed by myself, Nicholas Edward Williams, with writing and research by Brent Davis.
46:40.567 --> 46:46.854
[SPEAKER_12]: In the words of Bob Willes, here's the songs of old, may they live on forever.
46:47.694 --> 46:50.177
[SPEAKER_12]: See you next time, on American Song Catcher.
46:52.047 --> 47:06.692
[SPEAKER_13]: So I had to, woman, make me walk with line, you load 16 tons, water yet, another day older and deeper and dead, same theater, don't you call me cause I can't go.
47:08.776 --> 47:17.110
[SPEAKER_13]: I owe my soul.
47:19.165 --> 47:23.978
[SPEAKER_13]: to the company's store.