78 RECORD BOB WILLS TEXAS PLAYBOY PUNKIN' STOMP HOW CAN IT BE WRONG COWBOY SWING

James Robert "Bob" 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 universally known as the King of Western Swing (after the death of Spade Cooley who used 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 a Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station 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. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.

He was born on a farm near Kosse, Texas, in Limestone County near Groesbeck, to Emma Lee Foley and John Tompkins Wills. His father was a statewide champion fiddle player and the Wills family was either playing music, or someone was "always wanting us to play for them", in addition to raising cotton on their farm.

In addition to picking cotton, the young Jim Bob learned to play the fiddle and the mandolin. Both a sister and several brothers played musical instruments, while another sister played piano. The Wills family frequently held country dances in their home, and there was dancing in all four rooms. While living in Hall County, Texas, they also played at 'ranch dances' which were popular in both North Texas and eastern New Mexico.

Wills not only learned traditional music from his family, he learned some Negro songs directly from African Americans in the cotton fields near Lakeview, Texas, and said that he did not play with many white children other than his siblings, until he was seven or eight years old. African Americans were his playmates, and his father enjoyed watching him jig dance with black children.

"I don't know whether they made them up as they moved down the cotton rows or not," Wills once told Charles Townsend, author of San Antonio Rose: The Life And Times Of Bob Wills, "but they sang blues you never heard before."

Legacy
Wills' style influenced performers Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and helped to spawn a style of music now known as the Bakersfield Sound.[citation needed] (Bakersfield, California was one of Wills' regular stops in his heyday). A 1970 tribute album by Haggard directed a wider audience to Wills' music, as did the appearance of younger "revival" bands like Asleep at the Wheel and the growing popularity of longtime Wills disciple and fan Willie Nelson. By 1971, Wills recovered sufficiently to travel occasionally and appear at tribute concerts. In 1973 he participated in a final reunion session with members of some the Texas Playboys from the 1930s to the 1960s. Merle Haggard was invited to play at this reunion. The session, scheduled for two days, took place in December 1973, with the album to be titled For The Last Time. Wills, speaking or attempting to holler, appeared on a couple tracks from the first day's session but suffered a stroke overnight. He had a more severe one a few days later. The musicians completed the album without him. Wills by then was comatose. He lingered until his death on May 13, 1975.

In addition to being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968, Wills was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category along with the Texas Playboys in 1999, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

From the 1970s until his 2002 death, Waylon Jennings performed a song called "Bob Wills Is Still The King". In addition, The Rolling Stones performed this song live in Austin, Texas at Zilker Park for their DVD The Biggest Bang. In a 1968 issue of Guitar Player, rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix said of Wills and the Playboys: "I dig them. The Grand Ole Opry used to come on, and I used to watch that. They used to have some pretty heavy cats, some heavy guitar players."

Wills ranked #27 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men In Country Music in 2003.

Wills' upbeat 1938 song Ida Red was Chuck Berry's primary inspiration for creating his first Rock and Roll hit - Maybellene.

Fats Domino once remarked that he patterned his 1960 rhythm section after that of Bob Wills.

During the 49th Grammy Awards in 2007, Carrie Underwood performed his song "San Antonio Rose". Today, George Strait performs Wills' music on concert tours and also records songs influenced by Wills and his Texas-style swing.

The Austin-based Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel have honored Wills' music since the band's inception, mostly notably with their continuing performances of the musical drama A Ride With Bob, which debuted in Austin in March 2005 to coincide with celebrations of Wills' 100th birthday.

The Bob Wills Birthday Celebration is held every year in March at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma with a Western swing concert and dance.

In 2004, a documentary film about his life and music, entitled Fiddlin' Man: The Life And Times Of Bob Wills, was released by VIEW Inc.

On October 26, 2006, The Rolling Stones performed the Waylon Jennings-penned "Bob Wills Is Still the King" at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas

In 2011, Proper Records released an album by Hot Club of Cowtown titled What Makes Bob Holler: A Tribute To Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature adopted a resolution designating western swing as the official "State Music Of Texas".

On February 9, 2014, the 80th Anniversary of Bob Wills' first performance at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture (OKPOP) announced plans to create a feature-length documentary about the life and music of Bob Wills. The documentary will be titled Still the King. Bob Wills: The Man. The Music.