"Bob Wills Is Still the King"

[wolfs]

Does anyone like Bob Wills? I feel like he's underappreciated. I first heard about him from the Waylon Jennings song, and once I heard a bit of Wills's music, I was hooked.

I picked up a box set of his work (Take Me Back to Tulsa - from the label Proper Box - four discs for under $25) and I've been digging almost every minute of it. I really like older rural American music (acoustic blues, early jazz, early country, etc.) and it just amazes me how the Texas Playboys seem to put all these different influences together seemlessly.

Does anyone else feel on this? Am I the only person that gets goosebumps when Tommy Duncan sings?

 

[RHFusillo]

I live in Texas. It would be a criminal offense to say anything against Brother Bob.

But, truthfully, Bob Wills ruled. He still rules.

 

[Lazylion]

I first heard about him from the Waylon Jennings song...

I love that song! It might have been the first Waylon song I ever heard. I used to sing it every night, and I wouldn't mind bringing it back!

 

[wolfs]

I'm glad to hear that he's still remembered in Texas... I grew up in northern Wisconsin when top 40 country was just becoming really widespread throughout the rest of rural America... like when Garth Brooks, Brooks and Dunn, Clint Black were first hitting big. So most people's appreciate for country maybe spread back to the 60's and 70's (Waylon, Willie, Merle, Loretta) a lot of that stuff that I really like, but I never got a deep sense of the history of the music until I started digging on my own... Bob Wills's music just really impresses me since I like so many different genres, and the songs... they're so damn catchy!

 

[wolfs]

"You can hear the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee,
That's the home of country music, on that we all agree.
But once you cross that ole Red River, hoss, that just don't mean a thing,
Once you're down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king!"

That's my favorite verse from the song... great song, great album. I even love the stupid little joke at the beginning of the song (I wrote this next song on the plane between Dallas and Austin... going to El Paso... whoops)

 

[Chris Rhoades]

Bob Wills!

 

[Loel]

Bob Wills indeed!
i like the stuff he did with Mel Tillis
as a guest,asleep at the wheel does
some nice tributes to Bob as well
good stuff...

cheers

 

[ElectroVibe]

These guys could play.

 

[Stinsok]

I'll probably get pelted with rocks but I wish Bob would just zip it. I know it's his band but he annoys the crap out of me.

 

[ElectroVibe]

I'll probably get pelted with rocks but I wish Bob would just zip it. I know it's his band but he annoys the crap out of me.

I know. But it was probably good for keeping their spirits up, as well as directing them.

 

[Michedelic]

I'll probably get pelted with rocks but I wish Bob would just zip it. I know it's his band but he annoys the crap out of me.

It’s called the entertainment business. With the large bands back then, and the crudest of PA systems, someone had to be the focal point, call the shots, and call the tunes, and yes, it was his band. Their audiences loved him; in the general format of any kind of big band in those times, vocalists were not necessarity the stars of the show, but featured soloists. Do you feel the same way about Cab Calloway?
Wills was a crucial contributor to the evolution towards roll’n’roll; while they were, in theory, a country(or more correctly, a western)band, he included jazz dance rhythms at a time when the Grand Old Opry forbade drums(they didn’t want any ‘jungle music’ creeping in). Many of his players had a jazz background. This trickled down to Hillbilly Boogie(Maddox Brothers and Rose being a perfect example), and further on to Rockabilly. Plus, he embraced this new-fangled guitar amplifier technology. As he was a hit on the west coast, this forward looking viewpoint certainly led to the gestation of the Bakersfield sound, where they didn’t care how it was done in Nashville.

 

[Stinsok]

My issue is him stomping all over solos.

Here's one to bake your noodle:.

 

[fhm555]

Raises hand.
When I was a wee lad and we would be put to bed at nine, my dad would break out his reel to reel and play along with his favorite music. Bob Wills was one of many things I recall hearing while laying in bed, wide awake in the dark listening to music filtering down the hall. It was a few years later before I put names to most of what i heard, but the music sticks with me to this day.

 

[ElectroVibe]

I'm not familiar with this singer, but he is amusing for some reason.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Tommy Duncan, probably his best singer.

 

[Hot Rats]

I'll probably get pelted with rocks but I wish Bob would just zip it. I know it's his band but he annoys the crap out of me.

Bob responded to just that critique.

"You hired Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and Bob Wills hollers any time he feels like it and says whatever he wants to say! Now if you want to accept that, Mr. Satherley, we'll do it. But if you don't, we're going home!"

 

[SAlcott]

Luke was one of his sons. The Stones version is a cringefest from start to finish. As my grannies would say, "bless their hearts for tryin'". As an aside, I knew the second steel player Maurice Anderson, and backed him up several times at the big annual steel convention in Dallas. He had stories.....Bob could be a bit casual about where he came in; there was always bit of "moveable 1".

 

[bassicmike]

The 1 was where Bob put it.

 

[lunarpollen]

I like a lot of his stuff but I'm more of a fan of Billy Jack Wills and Johnnie Lee Wills