From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Feb 25, 2003  4:39 pm
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Billy Jack Wills
 
BILLY JACK WILLS

Born 26 February 1926, Memphis, Hall County, Texas
Died 2 March 1991, Pottawatomie, Oklahoma

Vocalist / songwriter / Western swing bandleader.
Bob Wills's youngest brother, Billy Jack, led what was probably
Northern California's most popular western swing band during the 
early fifties.

Overshadowed much of his career by his older brothers, Billy Jack
learned to play guitar, bass and drums and played in the band of
his brother Johnnie Lee Wills (1912-1984) in the early 1940s and
after WW II with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. He guested as
vocalist on a number of Bob's MGM discs including "Rock A Bye
Baby Blues" and "Bottle Baby Boogie", from which Charlie Feathers
may have have got the inspiration for "Bottle To The Baby". Billy Jack
also wrote the rocking "Cadillac In Model A" and the lyrics to the 
classic ballad "Faded Love".

By 1950, Billy Jack and Texas Playboy Tiny Moore had organised
their own band to play at Wills Point Ballroom near Sacramento, CA
(owned by Bob Wills). Until it disbanded in 1955, this progressive 
western swing band experimented with jump blues and the emerging
rhythm & blues sound, incorporating a 4/4 beat instead of Bob Wills's
usual 2/4 time. The group's recordings for 4-Star (1951-52) and then
MGM didn't always reflect Billy Jack's love for R&B, but they swing 
along nicely on "Good Rockin' Tonight" and "All She Wants To Do Is
Rock", which were included on the Bear Family CD That'll Flat Git It
# 7 (devoted to MGM). With Tiny Moore's tight arrangements and jazzy
electric mandolin and hot steel guitarist Vance Terry, they made some
superb transcription recordings for station KFBK, which were commer-
cially released on the Western label in the early 1980s.

The group broke up in 1955. Most of the members went to work for
brother Bob's Texas Playboys. Billy Jack retired from music in 1960 
and died in 1991.

CD: Billy Jack Wills and his Western Swing Band (Joaquin, 1996).