ROOTS of Country Music

Bob Wills & His Playboys

The Original Band -1933

The Texas Playboys

The Texas Playboys were a western swing band, long led by Bob Wills and considered by many to be the definitive progenitor of that musical genre.

Bob Wills etched his way into America's heart with the inimitable sound of his band, The Texas Playboys. While Wills was certainly the charismatic stage presence, talent scout, songwriter and western-swing mastermind, The Texas Playboys were one of the best bands to ever grace the genre.

In 1968, Bob Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Strangely, no other Texas Playboy has been inducted. Not even the incomparable Tommy Duncan.

There were over six hundred members of the The Texas Playboys through the years. The following is a partial list that we have verified.

1. Al Stickland (piano)
2. Albert Talley (steel guitar)
3. Alex Brashear (trumpet)
4. Art Hines (fiddle, trumpet)
5. Art McNulty(piano)
6. Benny Garcia (guitar)
7. Benny Johnson (piano)
8. Benny Strickler (trumpet)
9. Bill Mounce (banjo)
10. Billy Armstrong (fiddle)
11. Billy Bowman (steel guitar)
12. Billy Briggs (tenor sax)
13. Billy Carter (lead guitar)
14. Bill Choate (vocals)
15. Billy Houck (drums)
16. Billy Jack Wills (bass guitar, drums)
17. Billy McBay (fiddle)
18. Billy Mize (vocal)
19. Billy Wright (fiddle)
20. Bob Fitzgerald (drums)
21. Bob Moore (bass guitar)
22. Bob White (steel guitar, fiddle)
23. Bob Wills (fiddle)
24. Bobby Boatright (fiddle)
25. Bobby Koefer (steel guitar)
26. Bobby McBay (bass guitar)
27. Buddy Harmon (drums)
28. Buddy Ray (fiddle)
29. Buzz Carson (vocal)
30. Cameron Hill (guitar)
31. Cap Kelly
32. Carolina Cotton (vocal)
33. Casey Dickens (drums)
34. Cecil Brower (fiddle)
35. C. G. "Sleepy" Johnson (guitar)
36. Charles Laughton (trumpet)
37. Chuck Mackey (trumpet)
38. Clarence Cagle (piano)
39. Claude Fewell (vocalist)
40. Claude "Whoopy" McCray
41. Cliff Crofford (vocal)
42. Clifton Johnson (guitar, tenor banjo)
43. Cotton Roberts (fiddle/bass)
44. Cotton Whittington (guitar)
45. Curly Lewis (fiddle)
46. Danny Alguier (trumpet)
47. Darla Daret (vocalist)
48. Darrell Jones (bass guitar)
49. Dean McKinney* (vocal)
50. Dewey Groom
51. Dick Hamilton (electric guitar)
52. Doc Lewis (piano)
53. Don Harlan (saxaphone, clarinet)
54. Doyle Salathiel (electric guitar)
55. Durwood Brown (guitar)
56. Earl Finley (guitar)
57. Eldon Shamblin (lead guitar)
58. Evelyn McKinney* (vocal)
59. Everett Stover (trumpet)
60. Frankie McWhorter (fiddle)
61. Gary Cummings (vocal)
62. Gene Crownover (steel guitar)
63. Gene Garf (piano)
64. Gene Gasaway (fiddle)
65. Gene Tomlin (drums)
66. George Balay (clarinet, saxaphone)
67. George Cleburn (fiddle)
68. Glen Rhees (saxophone)
69. Glynn Duncan (vocal, bass)
70. Hack Allard
71. Hal Clampitt (steel guitar)
72. Hargus Pig Robbins (piano)
73. Harley Huggins (guitar, vocals)
74. Harold Bradley (electric guitar)
75. Harvey Grossman (trumpet)
76. Herb Remington (steel guitar)
77. Herman Arnspiger (guitar)
78. Homer Harrison
79. Howard Davis (drums)
80. Howard Jabow (drums)
81. Hoyle Nix (fiddle)
82. Jack Greenback (drums)
83. Jack Lloyd (bass)
84. Jay Roberts (guitar)
85. Jamie MacIntosh (trumpet)
86. Jerry Case (guitar)
87. Jerry Howard 9drums)
88. Jesse Ashlock (fiddle)
89. Jim Belken (fiddle)
90. Jimmy Benjamin (drums)
91. Jimmy Widener (banjo, guitar, vocals)
92. Jimmy Wyble (guitar)
93. Jimmy Young
94. Jody Nix (drums)
95. Joe Andrews (bass guitar, vocals)
96. Joe Ferguson (bass guitar, fiddle)
97. Joe Holley (fiddle)
98. Johnnie Lee Wills (tenor banjo)
99. Johnnie Manson (fiddle)
100. Johnny Cuvello (drums)
101. Johnny Dalton (drums)
102. Johnny Edwards (drums)
103. Johnny Gimble (fiddle, electric mandolin)
104. Johnny Megretto (drums)
105. Johnny Patterson (lead guitar)
106. June Whalin (rhythm, bass guitar)
107. Junior Barnard (guitar)
108. Junior Mitchan (vocalist)
109. Keith Coleman (fiddle)
110. Kenny Cannan (trombone)
111. Kenny Lowery (guitar)
112. Kenny Norman
113. Kermit Whalin (electric, bass, steel guitar)
114. Laura Lee McBride* (vocal)
115. Laura Lee Owens* (vocal)
116. Lee Ross (vocals)
117. Leon Huff (guitar)
118. Leon McAuliffe (steel guitar, vocals)
119. Leon Rausch (bass guitar, vocals)
120. Leon Ross (bass guitar)
121. Leonard Seago (fiddle)
122. Les Anderson
123. Lester Benard Jr (lead guitar)
124. Lew Walker (electric guitar)
125. Loyd Wheeler (fiddle)
126. Louis Tinery (fiddle, saxophone)
127. Louses Rowe* (vocals, bass guitar)
128. Luke Wills (tenor banjo, bass guitar)
129. Maurice Anderson (steel guitar)
130. Mancel Tierney
131. Marvin Montgomery (banjo)
132. Marvin Shaw (trumpet)
133. Maurice Anderson (steel guitar)
134. Merle Haggard (fiddle)
135. Millard Kelso (piano)
136. Milton Brown (vocal)
137. Monty Mountjoy (drums)
138. Morris Billington (piano)
139. Neil Duer Trumbone)
140. Noel Boggs (steel guitar)
141. Norman Arnspiger
142. O. W. Mayo
143. Ocie Stockard (fiddle, tenor banjo)
144. Paul McGhee (drums)
145. Pee Wee Lynn
146. Phil Sperbeck (steel guitar)
147. Ramona Reed* (vocalist)
148. Ray DeGeer (saxophone)
149. Rip Ramsey (bass guitar)
150. Robert "Zeb" McNally (saxophone, clarinet)
151. Roy Honeycutt (steel guitar)
152. Rusty McDonald (vocals)
153. Ruth McMaster (fiddle)
154. Shorty Messer (steel guitar)
155. Skeeter Elkins (piano)
156. Sonny Lansford (bass guitar)
157. Tag Lambert (electric guitar, vocalist)
158. Teddy Adams (bass guitar)
159. Tiny Moore (electric mandolin)
160. Tiny Mott (saxophone)
161. Tommy Allsup (rhythm Guitar)
162. Tommy Duncan (lead vocals)
163. Tommy Jackson (fiddle)
164. Tommy Morrell (guitar)
165. Tommy Perkins (drums)
166. Tommy "Spike" Doss (vocal)
167. Tommy Varner (steel)
168. Truitt Cunningham (bass guitar)
169. Tubby Lewis (trumpet)
170. Vance Terry (steel guitar)
171. Vic Davis (piano)
172. Vikki Carr (vocal)
173. Wade Peeler (drums)
174. Walter Lyons (electric guitar)
175. Wayne Butler (trombone)
176. Wayne Johnson (saxophone)
177. Wayne Nichols (trumpet)
178. Whoopy McCray
179. William Eschol "Smokey" Dacus (drums)
180. Woody Wood (clarinet, alto saxaphone)

*-Female Singer: McKinney Sisters

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Billie "Tiny" Moore

(May 12, 1920 ~ Dec. 15, 1987)

Tiny Moore was a western swing musician who played the electric mandolin and fiddle with Western swing legend Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1940s.

Born in the Gulf Coast town of Port Arthur, Texas, in 1920, Moore was the first well-known American musician in any genre whose primary instrument was the electric mandolin. While a member of the Texas Playboys from 1946 to 1952, he played a Gibson EM-150 8-string mandolin using 4 single strings instead of pairs. This gave his mandolin an electric guitar like sound.

In 1952, he commissioned the first American-built, 5-string electric mandolin from Paul Bigsby. At the time Moore was playing in a band led by Bob Wills' brother, Billy Jack Wills. The Bigsby 5-string mandolin had single courses of strings (rather than the paired courses on a standard mandolin) and added a low C string to the standard G, D, A and E. This tuning actually gives the instrument a wider range of notes than a guitar.

Western swing is a hybrid of country, blues and jazz; Tiny Moore's style of playing drew upon all of these sources. Moore and his Bigsby mandolin were strongly identified with each other for the remainder of his career. The instrument is arguably the most famous electric mandolin in the history of American popular music.

In the mid 1960's he taught group guitar lessons at the local YMCA in Sacramento, California(CA). Moore taught every style of music from Old Timey folk to The Beatles. He also operated Tiny Moore Music, a music store in Sacramento, and sold copies of the Bigsby mandolin built by Jay Roberts of Yuba City, CA.

In the 1970s he was part of The Strangers, which was Merle Haggard's band. During that decade he also made two recordings with David Grisman for Kaleidoscope Records: Tiny Moore Music and Back to Back, a duet album with Jethro Burns.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Billy McBayBilly Billy McBay was born in Fulton Arkansas (AR). He grew up around Texarkana, AR where he picked his share of cotton in those Arkansas cotton fields. Billy and his Brothers played for country dances in the mid-1940s.

After World War II, his brothers formed The McBay Brothers Band in 1945. They played radio stations and local night clubs both in Texas and Arkansas. They were together until the older brothers married and started raising their families.

Billy McBay played the Long Horn Ballroom from 1959 until 1977. In 1964 he worked on a recording session and toured with Bob Wills for a short time before going back to the Long Horn Ballroom.

Mr. McBayplayed jobs around Dallas, Texas (TX) and Ft Worth, TX and did some light traveling until he went to work with Hank Thompson in 1995. His fiddle playing is prominent on Hank Thompson's Seven Decades CD, released in 2000. Billy is enshrined in The Pioneers of Western Swing Hall Of Fame in Seattle, Washington and the Texas Hall of Western Swing, San Marcus, Texas.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bobby Boatright

(Sep. 30, 1939 ~ Dec. 28, 2008)

In fiddling circles, the late Bobby Boatright could fiddle circles around most fiddlers. And fiddle he did, all over the country, earning a name for himself in western swing. In his other life, he was a mathematician and physicist.

When Bobby was a boy, his daddy told him to learn math and play music. Not only did Boatright become a respected college math professor, but he played all over the world as a fiddler for the Texas Playboys.

Bobby Lynn Boatright was born in Denison, Texas (TX). Like most families in town, his parents worked at the nearby textile mill. His father didnt have a formal education, but he played bass and taught himself to crunch numbers. He passed his interests on to his son. Boatright took up music as a youngster and devoted a lot of time to learning.

Bobbys fiddling career took off in Wichita Falls, Texas (TX) when he was just fourteen. The family had just moved to the Faith Village neighborhood from Denison, TX. Bobby majored in math and physics at Midwestern State University. He played the fiddle on the side and appedared with country music DJ, Bill Mack on a live TV show.

After Boatright graduated from college, he worked as a math teacher at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma and at a junior college in Gainesville, TX.

Bobby played the fiddle around Fort Worth, TX at nights and on weekends. He met other musicians, made connections and was hired to play with the Texas Playboys, founded in the 1930s by the legendary Bob Wills.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cameron Hill

The names Hill and Wyble generally come in one breath, as their best known work came as a pair. With the exception of his impressive twin guitar work on tunes like Perdido, Cameron Hill generally played rhythm. Wyble, hailing from Port Arthur, Texas recorded his first solos with Bill Mounce and His Sons of the South on Bluebird. Like so many western swing guitarists, Wyble had a strong feeling and love for jazz.

Together, they joined Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys circa late 1943, playing with the King of Western Swing on the road, on records and in a few western films. In particular, fans remember their tremendous work on the Wills tunes Smoke on the Water in 1945 and Roly Poly in 1946.

By 1947, the duo shifted to the Spade Cooley orchestra, offering impressive solos on such Victor records as Texas Playboy Rag. Two years later, they were together in an ill-fated orchestra started by Wills vocalist Tommy Duncan. Though promised they wouldnt hit the road too much, the duo had to do just that in Duncan's band. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Wyble alone returned to Spade Cooleys band.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Casey Dickens

Casey Dickens, a Beaumont, Texas native, completed a stint in the Marine Corps. Then he began a long association with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys that started in 1950. Casey was foremost a fan and friend of Bob Wills and later served as the Texas Playboy's drummer in the early sixties.

Casey Dickens was with Bob and Tommy Duncan during the successful Vegas days of Bob's career. His friendship and association with Wills extended to their mutual love of horses. Bob not only gave Casey his 1948 hand-stitched and silver in-lined saddle, but Casey also was presented one of Punkin's (Bob's beloved horse) colts. Buddy was the colt's name and Casey rode and enjoyed Buddy for 30 years.

After Casey left the Texas Playboys, he embarked on a teaching career that spanned twenty-eight years. Later, Casey assembled a band of former Texas Playboys and they played in Oklahoma and across Texas keeping Bob Wills and his music alive.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Eldon Shamblin

(Apr. 24, 1916 Aug. 5, 1998)

Without a doubt, Eldon Shamblin was the best known western swing guitarist in the musics history. Beyond that, however, is an unending stream of praise and admiration outside the confines of one style of music. Indeed, his rhythm work has thrilled Ray Brown, Joe Venuti, Shelley Manne, Chet Atkins, Herb Ellis, Bucky Pizarrelli and others.

In recent years, he recorded with such superstars as Lyle Lovett, Garth Brooks, Brooks and Dunn, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill and others. Eldon even received a Grammy for an instrumental tune (Red Wing) on Asleep at the Wheels 1993 album, A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Shamblin was a self-taught guitarist first picking up the instrument at the age of seventeen in Weatherford, Oklahoma. He later moved to Oklahoma City and began working the club scene. In 1935, he landed a spot on the Alabama Boys band as both vocalist and guitarist.

By the time Eldon Shamblin moved to Bob Wills Texas Playboys some two years later, the instrument was his sole focus. Wills suggestion for Shamblins guitar work was simply, put a lot of runs in it. This transformed his style into a flowing, sophisticated sound with fluid arpeggios, complex bass runs and driving chords that has become copied in and outside the field of western swing. One big fan, Leo Fender, gave Eldon a prototype guitar to play on the bandstand in the fifties. It was the original Stratocaster, which Eldon continued to play for over four decades.

Mr. Shamblin's work throughout the years with Wills, however, went beyond mere rhythm. At times Eldon not only acted as band manager; he also arranged such classic western Swing standards as Big Beaver. Moreover, Eldon played complex twin guitar work with steel men Leon McAuliffe and Herb Remington. After years with Wills, Eldon worked stints with Leon McAuliffe, Hoyle Nix, and a lengthy tenure with Merle Haggard.

Nearly six decades after joining Wills, Eldon Shamblin was still at it. In 1996, an album under his own name (Therell Be Some Changes Made) hit the K-VOO airwaves on the day of his eightieth birthday. He was amazed when reminded that Charlie Christian and Les Paul drove miles and miles to hear him play back in the thirties. Although Eldon was semi-retired outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, he remained the standard-bearer of western swing. In the 1990s, Musician Magazine named him one of the top prime movers in the instruments history.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Glenn Rhees

(Jul. 23, 1925 ~ Mar. 29, 1996)

Glenn Donald Rhees was born in Oilton, Oklahoma (OK). Glenn started playing the sax in the seventh grade while attending school in Jennings, OK. Glenn changed schools in the eighth grade and played in the Oilton High School Band. He then moved to Tulsa,OK and played in the Webster High School Band. While there, he performed on shows with fellow student Patti Page. Following his high school days, he gained experience in music playing with area bands while working for oil exploration companies in Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and Louisiana. He moved back to Tulsa after three years to break into the music scene.

From 1946 to 1948, Rhees toured with Art Davis and the Rhythm Riders throughout Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. Lucky Moeller heard Glenn and offered him a job with the Western Okies. Glenn later moved to New Mexico and played night clubs. In 1950, he moved back to Oklahoma City, OK and joined Luke Wills Band the Rhythm Busters at the Trianon Ballrom. A year later Glenn moved to Lawton, Oklahoma to join the Southernairs. While with this band he played with Lefty Frizzel, Tommy Duncan, Webb Pierce, Hank Williams and Tex Ritter.Four years later he moved back to Tulsa, OK and went to work with Johnnie Lee Wills. In 1957, Bob Wills was looking for a sax man and Johnnie Lee recommended said Glenn.

Glenn Rhees became a full-fledged Texas Playboy for the next five years. He is on all of the Liberty recordings. Glenn picked up the nickname "Blub" because of the extra pounds he carried under his belt. In 1962, he went back to Johnnie Lee Wills band. Glenn also cut singles with Johnnie Lee Wills, including Blub Twist and Slush in 1962.

Mr. Rhees was a member of the Musicians Union and had been inducted into the Western Swing Hall of Fame in Colorado, Washington and California. He was also inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Glenn Rhees' recordings are included in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute under Oklahoma Folk Music. Rhees just couldn't hang up his horn, and played with the Former Texas Playboys for many shows in the early 1990's.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------George Clayburn

(Sep. 26, 1926 ~ Dec. 7, 2003)

George Clayburn was born in Atoka, Oklahoma (OK). He started playing fiddle when he was twelve years old. George played his first public gig at the American Legion in Sulphur, OK. Like so many, George's fiddle playing was interrupted by World War II. After spending some time stationed in the Philippine Islands with the US Army, George went to Oklahoma City, OK to attend barber school. During this time he teamed up with the Tommy Bowman Band.

Clayburn's next gig was working with the Lee Bell band in Roswell, New Mexico (NM) at Scottie's Night Club. George then spent some time in Ray Reed's band at the Yucca Night Club. While in Roswell, NM, he met fourteen year old Tagg Lambert. They became friends and George introduced Tagg to the music of Bob Wills. George had a band playing in Clovis and Ruidoso, NM. Tagg was playing Chet Atkins style music at that time and asked for a job in George's band.

George Clayburntold Tagg Lambert if he could learn the song, September in the Rain, he would hire him. Tagg returned the next morning and played the song note for note.

George joined Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys in 1959 and left in 1964. You can hear George on fiddle on several of the Bob Wills Liberty Records recordings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jimmy Wyble

(Jan. 25, 1922, Port Arthur, Texas ~ Jan. 16, 2010)

The East Coast had Les Paul. Perhaps the West Coasts answer to the guitar kingpin was Jimmy Wyble. Mr. Wyble was nowhere near as famous as Paul. He didnt have a namesake guitar played by legions of guitarists across the globe; but he had a lot in common with the stylist. Wyble had a career that lasted well into his 87th year. And, as was the case with Les Paul, the guitar seemed to keep him young, as he played guitar and taught GIT students at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California (CA), up until a few months before his death. Secondly, having worked with everyone from Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and Benny Goodman to Barney Kessel and Frank Sinatra, Mr. Wyble, like Les Paul, had a storied career. The biggest thing that he had in common with Mr. Paul, though, was that he was a true innovator.

Jimmy Wyble was one of the few guitarists who made a mark in both country and jazz music. His discography naturally crashed through a few supposedly fenced-in genre boundaries to get him from Benny Goodman to Bob Wills. The latter artist's style of western swing was no surprise to Wyble, since he was playing his own style of western swing music in 1942 with guitarist Cameron Hill when Mr. Wills got a chance to hear the guitarists playing live. Up until this time, Jimmy Wyble was a staff musician on a Houston, Texas radio station (1941-42), but he had been steadily toiling at bringing a jazz element into country music, sometimes against great pressure.

Bob Wills hired both Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill as "twin guitars" for his Texas Playboys. The bandleader had a fondness for combining hot players on identical instruments into musically dynamic duos and in the case of Wyble, the results can be heard to great advantage on the classic Wills' tribute to a fatso, Roly Poly.

Mr. Wyble kept up his picking with western swing bands well into the '50s, interrupted by a stint in the Army (1942 -1946). His first album as a leader was released in 1953, entitled simply The Jimmy Wyble Quintet. Wyble combined accordion, clarinet, guitar, bass and drums to create a unique sound quite different from a western swing or jazz combo.

In 1953, Jimmy Wyble recorded with the quartet of jazz guitarist Barney Kessel. Wyble began touring with the groups of both Goodman and the skilled vibraphonist Red Norvo. The latter artist was particularly adept and sympathetic with the guitar and this association produced two highly praised albums of mainstream jazz, as well as an Australian tour backing Frank Sinatra. As for Goodman, he had a natural interest in Wyble stretching back to the early western swing days.

After a lull in recording activity, Wyble cut another unusual set in 1977 with the strangely titled Jimmy Wyble & Love Brothers. The guitarist mainly kept busy in this period in the Los Angeles, CA studios and was a member of Tony Rizzi's Five Guitars. Mr. Wyble wrote what some consider his greatest work in the 70s with a book of etudes that characterize his swinging, contrapuntal style. There are classical guitarists all around the world that include his works in their repertoire.

Wyble appeared on television programs such as the Flip Wilson Show and Kraft Music Hall and studied classical guitar with fellow recording studio honcho Laurindo Almeida. Wyble also taught, with students who were guitar stars in their own right, including Howard Roberts and Steve Lukather. Wyble's film credits include The Wild Bunch, in which his strumming provides a nice background to a shot of ants devouring a scorpion (the original "Rat Pack" Ocean's Eleven) and the melodrama Kings Go Fourth. In the '80s he relocated to San Francisco, CA where he taught guitar and wrote guitar instruction books.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Joe Andrews

Joe Andrews started his professional music career in 1946 at The Nite Owl Club in West Texas. The band he worked for was Bud Fletcher and His Texans, which included Willie Nelson, Bobbie Nelson and their father, Ira Nelson, George Uptmor andCoset Holland.

Joe Andrews left the group in 1950 and joined Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys, where he was a lead vocalist and bass player. Joe was also a brother-in-law of Tommy Duncan, having married Corynne Duncan.

Some of Joe's recordings as vocalist for The Texas Playboys included Pliney Jane, Hubbin' It, I Can't Stand This Loneliness, I Want To Be Wanted, Ida Red, Deep Water, Sooner Or Later, All Night Long, You Can't Break A Heart, If He's Movin' In, Let's Get It Over And Done With, Faded Love, I Can't Take It Anymore and She's Killing Me.

Wills used Andrews in a number of Hollywood musical shorts in the 1950's. After leaving Wills, Joe Andrewsformed his own band.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Joe Frank Ferguson

(Apr. 22, 1914~ Feb. 14, 2001)

Joe Frank Ferguson III was a bassist and singer and a pioneer of western swing who played withtwo of the genre's best known bands; Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and the Light Crust Doughboys.

It's been more than 60 years since a serendipitous radio gig landed Joe Frank Ferguson an audition with country swing legend Bob Wills, but it is a story the old crooner was always happy to tell. Ferguson joined up with Bob Wills in 1936 after Wills heard him singing on the radio.

Mr. Ferguson won an amateur singing contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma while he was working there as a surveyor. The victory earned him $5 for his bus trip home. To kill some time before his bus arrived, Joe strolled the downtown streets and spotted a sign for KVOO (Tulsa) radio. He watched a lady playing the organ through a window and she invited him in. Joe told her about his victory in the amateur contest the night before and he belted out a few tunes on the radio. Bob Wills heard Ferguson's tunes and he called to tell Ferguson to stay put.

The young singer missed his bus home. And after an audition the next morning, he missed another bus, but joined Wills for one four-year ride.

''He was just magic when he got on the bandstand,'' Ferguson said. ''He could play a breakdown like nobody else.''

Ferguson died at a Fort Worth hospital.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Joe Holley

(1917 ~ Jul. 25, 1987)

James C. "Joe" Holley, the left-handed fiddler for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, was born on a farm outside Stephenville in West Texas. Joe started playing mandolin at age five and took up the fiddle eight years later. He worked on his family's farm during the day and played his fiddle in the evenings. Joe first played professionally at age of thirteen in a country dance hall. Although Joe was left-handed, his fiddle was setup for a right-handed player.

Joe Holley's fascination with stringed instruments started at an early age and he frequently played in country dances around his home in Erath County, Texas. At the age of sixteen Joe got a job in the kitchen of the Crazy Water Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas and wound up playing in the kitchen crew's band.

In 1934, Joe Holley joined Pinky Meyers and the Dixie Rhythm Boys in Fort Worth, Texas. He later played with Elmer Starborough and the High Flyers, Papa Sam Cunningham and the Crystal Spring Ramblers and Ocie Stockard and the Wanderers.

In 1941, during a small group recording session in Fort Worth, Holley was discovered by bandleader Bob Wills who overheard Joe playing in the next studio and wanted to hire him, but didn't have an open spot for a fiddler in his band. So Bob arranged for Holley to move to Tulsa to play for his brother's band, Johnnie Lee Wills, where they toured throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.

Joe joined Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys three years later in California (CA). The band played on the California circuit-Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley and the San Francisco Bay area during and right after World War II and was based for part of that time in Fresno, CA.

Mr. Holley, often called "Jody" by Bob Wills, made many records with Wills and appeared with him in half a dozen Republic Pictures Western movies in the 1940's. He performed countless times on radio and television. Joe stayed with Wills longer and traveled more miles with Bob than any other Texas Playboy fiddler. Holley toured with Wills until 1949 and played occasional concerts with Wills for the next twelve years. Joe opened with the Texas Playboys at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and played all the western swing tunes made famous by the original group.

In 1978, Holley played the fiddle on the Bob Wills Reunion album, which was considered one of the greatest western swing albums ever recorded. In 1982, Joe Holley was featured on the Festival of American Folklife on the mall of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. For the ten day festival he played with the Johnnie Lee Wills Western Swing Band, which included the country's best surviving Texas Swing musicians.

Joe Holley died in Fresno, California after a bout with pneumonia. He is buried in Clovis Cemetery in Clovis, California.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Johnnie (Junior) Barnard

Hailing from Oklahoma, Junior Barnard played a key role in moving western swing guitar in a direction begun by jazzman Charlie Christian. His first work in a major orchestra came as guitarist for the first edition of the Johnnie Lee Wills band for some six months in 1938.

When Johnnie Lee reorganized in late 1940 as Johnnie Lee Wills and His Boys, Barnard resumed the same role. The bands Decca recordings of April 1941 feature several of his strong and striking electric solos. In particular, Memories of You Dear, highlights the hot, jazzy sounds of his guitar.

During the war, he assumed Eldon Shamblins spot in the Bob Wills band. Along with appearing with Bob in several 1942 western films, Barnard worked on a special version of San Antonio Rose that Bing Crosby and Bob Wills recorded in Oklahoma.

After some brief work in a California shipyard, Barnard rejoined the Johnnie Lee Wills group and then went back again to Bobs group circa late 1944. One of his best-loved solos came on the classic Columbia recording of Brain Cloudy Blues in 1946.

The World War II era found him shuffling in and out of the Bob Wills group, almost taking turns in that spot with the guitar duo of Cameron Hill and Jimmy Wyble. When Eldon Shamblin rejoined the Wills group in 1946, he initially acted as band manager, with Barnard staying on guitar until approximately 1948.

His Fresno based band (Johnnie Barnard and His Radio Gang) never really took off, perhaps due to his untimely death at the end of the decade in a car wreck. Eldon Shamblin once deemed Barnard the best off the- cuff guitarist Wills ever had. Despite his unfortunate death, many fans still cite him as one of western swings hottest players.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Johnnie Gimble

John Paul Gimble (born May 30, 1926), better known as Johnny Gimble, is a country musician associated with Western swing. He is an award-winning fiddle player and considered one of the most impressive fiddlers in the genre's history

Gimble was born in Bascom, Texas, (TX). He began playing in a band with his brothers at age twelve and continued playing with two of them, George and Jerry, as the Rose City Swingsters. The trio played local radio gigs, but soon after Gimble moved to Louisiana and began performing with Jimmie Davis.

Late in the 1940s, he joined Bob Wills's band, The Texas Playboys. With Wills, he played both fiddle and electric mandolin and distinguished himself by using a five-string fiddle (most fiddles have four strings). Johnny broke off to form his own group in 1951, performing as the house band at Wills's club, but rejoined Wills in 1953 and continued to play with Wills until the early 1960s.

Gimble left the music business briefly, working in a barbershop and a hospital, until 1969 when he and Wills began recording together again. From this time on Gimble enjoyed steady work as a session musician, including with Merle Haggard on his Bob Wills tribute album and Chet Atkins on Superpickers in 1973.

The following year he took a cue from a song he wrote and performed on the Atkins' Superpickers album, Fiddlin' Around and recorded the first of ten solo albums, Fiddlin' Around.

Since the late 1970s, he has won five Best Instrumentalist awards from the Country Music Awards and eight Best Fiddle Player awards from the Academy of Country Music. From 1979 to 1981, Gimble toured with Willie Nelson worldwide. In 1983, Gimble assembled a Texas swing group featuring Ray Price on vocals and charted a country radio hit with One Fiddle, Two Fiddle, featured in the Clint Eastwood movie Honky Tonk Man.

Gimble spent several years teaching fiddle, ensuring that the style of western fiddle playing is passed on to the next generation. Gimble was also a member of the Million Dollar Band. His latest album is Celebrating with Friends.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Johnny Lee Wills

(Sep. 2, 1912 ~ Oct. 25, 1984)

Johnny Lee Wills was born in Jewett, Texas and was the younger brother of Bob Wills. He played banjo with Bob as a member of the Texas Playboys starting in 1934, the year the ensemble began playing on KVOO-AM in Tulsa, Oklahoma, (OK).

In 1939 he founded his own group, the Rhythmairs, but returned to the Playboys in 1940 when Bob split the ensemble into two groups and named Johnnie Lee leader of one of them. Following Bob's move to California in 1940, Johnnie Lee renamed his group Johnnie Lee Wills & All The Boys, remaining in Oklahoma. Johnnie Lee switched from banjo to fiddle in this group.

In 1941 Wills signed with Decca Records and recorded again with Bullet Records in 1949, where he saw his greatest success with songs such as Rag Mop and Peter Cotton Tail. In 1952 he signed with RCA Victor, where he was less successful, though he was still a popular draw in Oklahoma and remained a fixture on KVOO until 1958.

Mr. Wills continued to record through the early 1960s, but his ensemble dissolved in 1964, after which he was only intermittently active in music. Wills opened a clothing store in Tulsa and recorded for Flying Fish Records and Delta Records in the 1970s after Bear Family Records and Rounder Records reissued some of his old material.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leon McAuliffe

(Jan. 3, 1917 ~ Aug. 20, 1988)

William Leon McAuliffe was a western swing musician and band leader famous for his steel guitar solos with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. McAuliffe achieved fame as a steel guitarist in the heyday of Western Swing.

Leon McAuliffe's now classic tune Steel Guitar Rag inspired Wills to spotlight McAuliffe by calling out, Look out, friends -- here's Leon. Take it away, boys, take it away! McAuliffe began playing both Hawaiian and standard guitar at age fourteen.Leon began appearing on a local radio station as part of the group the Waikiki Strummers in 1931.

McAuliffe, at age 16, worked with the Light Crust Doughboys, playing both rhythm guitar and steel guitar. In 1935, he joined Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, who would soon become the premier western swing band in existence.Leonstayed with Wills until World War II. While with Wills he helped compose San Antonio Rose (instrumental version).

Leon McAuliffeis more noted, however, for his most famous composition, Steel Guitar Rag and his playing, along with that ofHouston's Bob Dunn (Light Crust Doughboys) that popularized the steel guitar in theUnited States. McAuliffe learned to electronically amplify his guitar from Bob Dunn, who later was a member of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Luke Wills

(Sep. 10, 1920 ~ Oct. 21, 2000)

Luther J. "Luke" Wills was born Sept. 10, 1920, on a farm near Memphis, Hall County, Texas. Luke was the younger brother of Bob Wills and the seventh of the Wills' family children. Like Johnnie Lee, Luke learned to play tenor banjo and made his musical debut in 1937, doing his first show with Bob's band in Cain's Academy in Tulsa. Luke then continued his career, now as a bass player in the second Wills' band, led by elder brother Johnnie Lee Wills, called the Rhythmaires.

In the early 1940's, when Bob left for Hollywood to make western movies, he took Luke and several other Texas Playboys with him. Together, they made several theatrical shorts and features while Johnnie Lee took over the Cain's broadcasts and dances. In 1943, he joined the US Navy during WW II. After service, he led Bob's second band and covered the dance circuit of northern and central California, appearing first as Luke Wills And the Texas Playboys Number 2, but to avoid confusion this soon became Luke Wills' Rhythm Busters.

Luke Wills recorded for King and RCA-Victor in the late 1940's, adopting a similar style of comments and interjections as Bob though not in a high pitched voice. In 1948, the Rhythm Busters were disbanded and Luke worked with Bob until 1950, when he reformed his own band and took over in Oklahoma City for a standing job at the Trianon Ballroom, when Bob returned to Texas to his new dancehall.

Mr. Wills rejoined Bob in 1952 and played and sang with the Playboys, often fronting the band in Bob's absence, until they disbanded in 1964. He then worked outside of the music industry in Las Vegas, as among other things, as a casino security guard. Some of Luke's better-known vocals during his career include Little Star Of Heaven Old Shep and Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone.

In 1971, Wills played bass on the Bob Wills' tribute recordings made at Merle Haggard's home in Bakersfield and later made some appearances at Playboy Reunion Shows but did not appear on the 1973 recording session in Dallas. Although contributing in no small way to his eldest brother's legend, he was not elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Bob.

In the late '70s, Luke left the music business and retired to Las Vegas where he was a resident for 35 years. In the 1990's, despite a stroke that rendered him unable to play bass, he was a regular member of the Bob Wills tribute bands around the country.

Luther J. Wills was a musician in the entertainment industry, a member of Screen Actors Guild and Western Swing Music Association.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------McKinney Sisters

Dean McKinney and her sister Evelyn sang with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in the late 1940s. They appeared with the Sons of the Pioneers and on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville,Tennessee (TN) with Eddie Arnold and Eddy Peabody, the Banjo King. Their vocals were featured on the Texas Playboys Columbia recording sessions and the Tiffany Transcriptions and a number of the band's commercial releases onColumbia and MGM.

Dean and Evelyn were known professionally as the McKinney Sisters. Little did the singing sisters know when they left Alabama (AL) to tour with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys that they would forever have a foothold in the rich history of western swing.

After working in Chicago with the Ted Weems Orchestra they were contacted by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Their first work with Wills was an ABC radio program and a musical short film for Universal Studios. A successful career withthe Texas Playboysresulted in classic recordings for MGM,Columbia and The Tiffany Transcriptions.

Bob Wills, an ace fiddler, had come to Californiato find a new base for the music he helped to popularize in Texas. He and his band, including Dean and Evelyn McKinney, made their way to Sacramento,CA in 1947.

Wills bought the old Aragon Ballroom, located on Auburn Boulevard and called it Wills Point (it burned down in 1956). Wills Plunge was the swimming pool, filled with ice-cold well water. Band members lived in small apartments under the dance floor. The ballroom held 4,000 people and the Texas Playboys came close to filling it. They also did a live broadcast every day on KFBK radio. Soon, Wills got an itch to get back on the road, so he left California and went home to Texas. In doing so, he left behind a legacy of western swing that thrived on the West Coast for decades.

While with the Texas Playboys, Dean McKinney met and married Tiny Moore, an accomplished mandolin player in 1948. Evelyn McKinney married Billy Jack Wills the year before. The McKinney Sisters didn't hear western swing back home in Birmingham, AL. The McKinney Sisters sang on a local radio station that broadcast as far away as Dallas and Fort Worth,Texas from the time they were fourteen and twelve years old, respectively.

The "Sweet-Voiced" McKinney Sisters traveled the country with Bob Wills. Dean McKinney Moore continued to travel with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys until late 1949, when Wills hired her and Tiny Moore to run the ballroom in his absence.

Wills Point dance hall in Sacramento, CA became Bob Wills' home base in the late 1940s. When Wills decided to take the band back on the road in about 1952, Billy Jack Wills set up his own band to hold down the fort at Wills Point.

Tiny and Dean Moore decided to stay in Sacramento, CA with Billy Jack Wills and the city was home for the rest of their lives. After leaving theband in 1954, Tiny Moore hosted a local children's TV show, opened a music store, gave music lessons and performed from time to time.

In 1970, Tiny Moore joined five other former Texas Playboys (Johnnie Lee Wills, Alex Brashear, Eldon Shamblin, Joe Holley and Johnny Gimble) on Merle Haggard's Tribute to the Best Dam Fiddle Player in the World and went on to join Haggard on tour.

After Tiny Moores death in 1987, Dean Moore became active in the Sacramento Western Swing Society, serving as their President for many years. During this time Dean Moore traveled extensively and continued to sing with her sister Evelyn at musical festivals across the United States to show case the unique style of music known as western swing. Dean Moore died on November 9, 2009 in Sacramento, CA.

Click Here for a list of Texas Playboys recordings that featured backing vocals by the McKinney Sisters.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Millard Kelso

(1912 ~ March 12, 1968)

Millard Kelso was born in Cleveland, Oklahoma and grew up on a farm. He spent his early days helping with the milking and plowing and other farm chores. Millard went to a little country school, but instead of studying at night, he would be playing tunes old tunes on the family piano.

By the time he was eighteen years old, he could play almost any popular number anyone requested. Then he began intensive development of his individual style which was called rhythm piano.

Millard originally joined Johnnie Lee Wills band, then soon joined the Texas Playboys just as the band was breaking up before the war. Kelso left for defense work, and later rejoined the band.

Following Tommy Duncan's departure from the Texas Playboys in September 1948, Millard, Joe Holley and Ocie Stockard, also left the Texas Playboys and joined up with Tommy Duncan and His Western All Stars.

Hoyle Nix and his brother Ben formed the West Texas Cowboys in 1946 and patterned the band after Bob Willss Texas Playboys. In 1954 the Nix brothers built a small dance hall on the Snyder highway just outside of Big Spring, Texas (TX) and named it the Stampede.

Nix had already established a dance circuit in the area and was making regular appearances in other Texas towns, including Abilene, Lubbock, Midland, Odessa and San Angelo.

During the late 1950s, the West Texas Cowboys grew to its largest size with nine members. The band at this time included former Texas Playboys Eldon Shamblin, Millard Kelso, and Louis Tierney

Millard Kelso died in Santa Clara, California.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Noel Boggs

(Nov. 14, 1917 ~ Aug. 31, 1974)

Noel Edwin Boggs was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A self-taught jazzer, he was the only one of three children in the Boggs family to show an interest in music. He learned to play the steel guitar in junior high school, and worked for three radio stations in the Oklahoma City area while still in high school.

After graduating from high school in 1936, he joined Hank Penny's Radio Cowboys and toured the southern and eastern United States. Boggs returned to Oklahoma City in 1937 and joined radio station WKY doing an early morning show and other spots throughout the day. He also recorded at this time with Wiley and Gene. In 1941, he started his own band, and played in the Oklahoma City area at the Rainbow Room for the next three years.

In 1944, Leon McAuliffe left Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys to form his own band, the Cimarron Boys. Noel then received a call from Bob Wills in
Hollywood inviting him to join the Wills orchestra to become Leon's replacement. Noel appeared on many of the Tiffany Transcriptions, as well as on the hits Texas Playboy Rag, Roly Poly, Stay A Little Longer and New Spanish Two Step.

In 1946, Noel Boggs left the Playboys to undertake an extended booking at the Hollywood Palladium. He rejoined Wills, then left again and joined Spade Cooley at the Santa Monica Ballroom. Boggs stayed with Spade Cooley's Dance Band until 1954. After that he formed his own quintet, playing throughout California and Nevada as well as on USO tours.

During his life, Noel Boggs appeared on some 2,000 recordings as a soloist, with Bob Wills, Spade Cooley, Jimmy Wakely, Hank Penny, Bill Boyd, Sheb Wooley, Les Anderson, Merle Travis, Tommy Duncan's Western All Stars and the Cass County Boys. He worked on the radio with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Sons of the Pioneers. Noel made regular television appearances with Spade Cooley and on Jimmy Wakely's television show. His motion picture work included appearances in Rhythm Roundup, Blazing the Western Trail, Lawless Empire, Frontier Frolic, Everybody's Dancin', and Out West Teenagers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ramona Reed

Ramona reed began her career on the Grand Ole Opry and toured with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1950's.

Ramona was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sleepy Johnson

(Feb. 25, 1909 ~ Apr. 24, 1976)

C.G. Sleepy Johnson was born in Locker, Texas. He was the youngest of eleven children born to Doc & Molly (Tally) Johnson. At an early age, Sleepy developed an interest in music. His first few instruments were home-made, using material he found around the home. It was not until he was fourteen years old that he acquired his first real musical instrument. During the early-1930s, in Ft. Worth, Texas (TX), Sleepy started playing professionally with Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys.

Sleepy played many instruments and the banjo was one of his better-known accomplishments. It is with this instrument Sleepy contributed to the success of the Light Crust Doughboy Band. Johnson worked hard during the day and many nights were sleepless! Many nights he played with heavy eye lids; thus acquiring the nickname Sleepy.

While touring with the Doughboys in Ft. Worth, TX, Sleepy met Elnora Beard, whom we
knew as Sally. On March 13, 1934, listeners to radio stations WBAPS-Ft. Worth, KPRC Houston and WOAI in San Antonio, TX heard the marriage ceremony of Sleepy and Sally as the Doughboys played the Wedding March ,while entertaining at the livestock show. Sleepy stayed with the Doughboys for two years after Bob Wills left them. Then he joined Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was with the Texas Playboys on stage at a Bob Wills Memorial Fiddle Contest, April 24, 1976 in Turkey, Texas that Sleepy quietly passed away. During his years with the Doughboys, Sleepy played the fiddle on many tunes that are so well-known to fiddlers. He was an astute fiddler, winning many first place contests. The beauty of his waltzes brought tears to many eyes-his peppy breakdowns and other type of music brought smiles.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Smokey Dacus

(Jul. 24, 1911 ~Oct. 09, 2001)

Smokey Dacus was the godfather of western swing drummers. Although his playing career was a short one (1935 to 1941), he defined his instrument's role not only within the hillbilly jazz that is today recognized as western swing, but also within country music in general.

During its formative years, drums had been all but absent from country music. Rhythm in the early hillbilly string bands was supplied by the tenor banjo and guitar. Even a simple snare drum was banned from the stage of the famed Grand Ole Opry. In the mid-1930s, however, the Texan bandleader and fiddle player Bob Wills was searching for the fresh uninhibited sound that would eventually see him crowned The King of Western Swing.

Having decided that the insistent dance beat he was after could best be supplied via a Dixieland jazz band drummer, he sought out Dacus, at that time playing behind an undistinguished hotel orchestra in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dacus joined the Texas Playboys in January 1935 and became the focus of a rhythm section that would introduce both the drums and the Dixieland beat to hundreds of thousands of rural music fans.

William E. Dacus was born in Quinton, Oklahoma and was drawn to music as a youngster. Despite the disapproval of a father who regarded music-making as sinful, he learned to play first the banjo, then guitar and finally drums. His musical abilities led to an invitation to attend Tulsa University, where Dacus played not only in the marching band and orchestra but also in a dance band named the Eight Collegians. While in Tulsa Dacus witnessed a pair of shows by the Duke Ellington Orchestra and met Ellington's drummer, Sonny Greer, who became both an important influence and a good friend.

As a member of the Texas Playboys, Dacus worked with some of the genre's great innovators: vocalist Tommy Duncan, steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe, rhythm guitarist and arranger Eldon Shamblin and pianist Al Stricklin. These last two joined him in forming what would become perhaps the most influential rhythm section in country music history. With Wills at the helm, the band enjoyed an extraordinary level of popularity in the south western United States and had massive hits with numbers like Steel Guitar Rag and Right or Wrong (both 1936) and New San Antonio Rose (1940).

In 1941, however, Dacus abruptly quit the band. Mindful of America's probable entry into the World War II, he sold his drums and worked in aircraft manufacture. Dacus musical career was effectively over. He worked very briefly with his old band mate Leon McAuliffe after the War, but then spent years until his retirement working as a mechanic and pilot in the oil industry.

Smokey Dacus returned to the spotlight only once more when, in 1973, Wills gathered together some of his old sidemen, including Dacus, McAuliffe, Shamblin and Stricklin and their longtime fan Merle Haggard. They cut the album For the Last Time. Although a stroke curtailed Wills own contribution to the project, it remains a fine testament to the ability of a group of virtuoso musicians to pick up where they had left off years prior.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tagg Lambert

(Jan. 29, 1943 ~ June 9, 1981)

Eugene "Tagg" Lambert was born in Eckman, West Virginia. Around 1956, he moved to Roswell, New Mexico and launched his musical career at Scotty's Nightclub. Lambert got the name Tagg from Bob Wills when he hired on as the youngest member of the band at age seventeen, because Bob already had two Genes; Gene Gassaway and Gene Crownover.

Bob told Lambert that he didn't want confusion on the bandstand! Lambert worked with the band playing electric guitar. Tagg was also a backing vocalist. He cutting twenty-eight records with Wills before illness forced Bob to retire. One of the singles, Born to Love You, sold a half-million copies.

After Bob died, Tagg continued to work as a musician in the Roswell area and appeared on several television talk shows. Lambert hosted the Bob Wills reunion in Turkey, Texas in April 1981, about two months prior to his death.

Tagg Lambert died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.His talent as a swing guitarist was widely recognized among professionals and his full, rich voice placed him among the best vocalists Bob Wills ever had.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tommy Duncan: The Heart and Soul of the Texas Playboys

(Jan. 11, 1911 ~ Jul. 25, 1967)

Tommy Duncan was a pioneering western swing vocalist and songwriter who gained fame in the 1930s and 1940s as a member of The Texas Playboys. As the lead singer for the classic lineup of the Texas Playboys,Duncan was the definitive western swing vocalist. Crossing the smooth croon of Bing Crosby with the twang of Jimmie Rodgers and the bluesy inclinations of Emmett Miller, Duncan had a warm, distinctive and welcoming voice that helped the Playboys cross over to a wider audience. Not only was he a great, trendsetting vocalist, Duncan also wrote many of the Texas Playboys' biggest hits. Tommy left the Playboys in 1948 when tensions between him and Bob Wills became too great.

The subject of western swing is rarely spoken of without mention of Bob Wills. While it is doubtful that Wills single-handedly invented western swing, he was surely the one who made it most popular and had the vision to see that blues and jazz style bands still had a place in country music after the demise of Jimmie Rodgers. Bob Wills was a musician, songwriter and bandleader, considered by many music authorities as one of the fathers of western swing and called the King of Western Swing by his fans.

Like Moon Mullican, Wills was a typical old time Texan. His first love when growing up was the blues and it was the same kind of blues that Mullican grew up on. Like Moon, Wills loved the black jazz of King Oliver and the rural cotton field moans of Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as the music of Jimmie Rodgers (the first real white bluesman). Meanwhile, future Playboys lead singer, Tommy Duncan, was listening to the same sort of material.

Wills went through quite a few bands in his early years including the Light Crust Doughboys and the Forth Worth Doughboys (late-1920s and early-1930s). Bob rubbed shoulders with other western swing pioneers like Milton Browne during these times. However, it was not until he formed his own band, the Texas Playboys, that he came into his own. Duncanwas hired by Wills in 1933 to fill the vacant spot left in the Light Crust Doughboys by vocalist/pianist Milton Brown.

Tommy Duncan was to Wills what Moon Mullican was to Cliff Bruner.Duncanshowed his prowess as a blues singer on such tracks as Honey, What You Gonna Do, Swing Blues #1 and Jimmie Rodgers' Blue Yodel #1. Such tracks as these proved thatDuncan's style stemmed from the blues. Wills rarely sang himself, but when he did sing he sang the blues.

Wills' music in the '40s became more conventional big band. Duncanproved he was a master of this, too. Wills' band seemed to move away somewhat from the blues in the 1940s. Such songs as Time changes Everything, San Antonio Rose, Faded Love and You're From Texas, are all classic country standards; but no way can any of them compare with a great blues tune like Brain Cloudy Blues. However, these are not the flavor of people who are fans of Wills' blues & true western swing styles, but they also proved just how versatile Duncan and Wills were.

As long as Duncan was the singer with Wills, the magic in him was always sure to make an appearance. The blues were rare during the '40s era, but Don't Cry Baby, one of the few that appears, is excellent. Other songs like Corrine, Corrina, Worried Wind, I Can't go on This Way or Texarkana Baby, while not exactly what you'd call pure blues, were excellent and were done with a feel for the blues.

Duncan stayed with Wills until 1948, when Bob fired the singer, believing that Tommy was commanding too much attention. This was the single worst thing that ever happened to Wills' band. Nobody could replaceDuncanin Wills' band.

Upon leaving the Playboys,Duncanformed a western swing band with several former members of the Playboys and signed to Capitol Records. Gamblin' Polka Dot Blues, his debut single, was a hit in 1949, peaking at No. 8 on the charts. After touring with the band during 1948 and 1949, Duncan joined the Miller Brothers Band in the early '50s. Over the course of the early '50s, he recorded with the Miller Brothers on Intro Records, as well as solo for Coral.

During the latter half of the decade, Duncan recorded for a variety of small labels, including Cheyenne, Fire and Award. Despite his constant touring and recording,Duncanfailed to have much success, primarily because western swing had fallen out of favor with many contemporary country fans.

Wills and Duncan patched up their differences and reunited in 1960, recording a number of sessions. In 1967, Duncan suffered a heart attack and died in July, leaving behind a legacy of classic recordings and songs. Duncan's reputation was that of a unique and distinctive talent who never compromised his style to be more popular or commercial. Although Duncanis a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999) and the Texas Music Hall of Fame, shamefully, he has been largely ignored by the Country Music Hall of Fame!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tubby Lewis

(1917 ~ June 23, 1941)

(L-R) Bob Wills, Jamie McIntosh, Tubby Lewis and Everett Stover (1941)

Walter Earle "Tubby" Lewis, Jr. was a great jazz trumpeter best known for his ferocious jazz solos on Big Beaver. Tubby played with the Texas Playboys in 1940 and 1941. Bob Wills thought he was among the best trumpet players he had ever heard.

Tubby Lewis got his nickname because, as Al Stricklin said "Tubby weighed about 350 pounds. After Big Beaver was released, other big bands from New York tried to hire Lewis, who stayed with the Texas Playboys. Tubby can be heard playing trumpet on such songs as, Lyla Lou, Wait 'Til You See,Liebestraum, La Paloma, Oh! You Pretty Woman, I Found A Dream and The Girl I Left Behind Me.

This was Bob's best era, with the big band sound. Following a tour that took the band through Texas, Tubby became seriously ill. Tubby Lewis died of pneumonia June 23, 1941 at the age of 24. He is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Tulsa.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Miscaleanous Pictures

Front Row (L-R) Jimmie Widener, Jack Rivers (guitar), Jimmy Wakely (guitar), Pete Martinez (steel guitar), the accordion player is unknown

(L-R ) in the back row are: Jesse Ashlock (fiddle), Harold Hensley (fiddle), Arthur Smith, (fiddle),probably Art West (bass)

Back Row (L-R) David Coleman, Glynn Duncan

Middle Row (L-R) Noel Boggs, Jimmy Wyble, Cameron Hill, Joe Holley

Front Row (L-R) Ocie Stockyard, Tommy Duncan, Millard Kelso

Above a photo of the Western All-Stars from 1949, the band Tommy formed after Bob Wills fired him in 1948. The group featured the heart of the mid-1940s Texas Playboys; Noel Boggs on steel, Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill on guitar, Joe Holley and Ocie Stockard on fiddle, Millard Kelso on piano, plus Dave Coleman on drums and Glynn Duncan on bass.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Researched, compiled and written by Richard Bell. Roots of Country Music. Mar. 2011.

Resource Wikipedia 2011.