Bob Wills

about

James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975), better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing, he was universally known as the King of Western Swing. 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 ten 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 hea

top songs

albums

For The Last Time

24 Greatest Hits

Columbia Historic Edition

Best Of Bob Wills, Volume 1

The Essential Bob Wills 1935-1947

Legends Of Country Music: The Best Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys

Together Again

The Country Music Hall Of Fame

Legends Of Country Music: The Best Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys

20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of Bob Wills

The Hits

Bob Wills Sings And Plays

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