From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed Mar 6, 2002  1:15 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Bob Wills
 
BOB WILLS (By Shaun Mather)

Born 6 March, 1905, near Kosse, Texas
Died 13 May, 1975, Fort Worth, Texas

Bob Wills has gone down in history as the most significant artist in the
Western Swing genre, an accolade that he carried with pride for over forty
years. From a musical family, he learned to play guitar, mandolin and
fiddle in his teens. At the age of fourteen he joined a medicine show as
fiddle played and blackface comedian. He met Herman Arnspiger and formed
the Wills Fiddle Band, soon extending the aggregation with the addition of
vocalist Milton Brown ad his brother Durwood (guitar) and Sleepy Johnson
(banjo). In early 1931 they began their own radio show for sponsors, Light
Crust Flour. They changed the name to the Light Crust Doughboys, but soon
lost Milton Brown who had become frustrated by the group's contract which
restricted them playing anything but the radio show. His replacement was
the superb Tommy Duncan, and during '33, Wills and Duncan left to form the
Texas Playboys, finally settling in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They added Johnnie Lee
Wills on banjo 18 year-old steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe to the band and
began recording for the American Recording Company (Columbia). Under the
watchful eye of producer Uncle Art Satherley scored with Steel Guitar Rag
and Right Or Wrong. By 1940 the band had extended to an 18-piece with
guitarist Eldon Shamblin being an important new member. New San Antonio
Rose reached number 11 in 1940 but the band was broken up with the advent of
World War II. When the band reformed after the War it was without the brass
section, and it was this new sound that was taken to the Okeh label, for
whom the hits continued with a re-cut of New San Antonio Rose, Smoke On The
Water, Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima. They moved to Columbia and
immediately hit with Texas Playboy Rag. Next came MGM and further hits with
Bubbles In My Beer and Keeper Of My Heart. By the late 40's, with Western
Swing on the decline, Wills had developed a drink problem and in a fit of
jealousy, he sacked Tommy Duncan. In 1950 he hit the charts with Ida Red
Likes The Boogie and Faded Love but didn't return for a decade, when Heart
To Heart Talk hit the top 10. He suffered two heart attacks in the early
60's and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. The
following year he was honored by the Texas Legislature for his contribution
to American music but suffered a massive stroke and was left paralyzed down
his right side. In '73 he was reunited with some of the Texas Playboys for
an album with Merle Haggard but after singing from his wheelchair during the
first session, he had another stroke which left him in a coma from which he
never recovered. He died 18 months later in a nursing home.