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Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP

Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 11, 2024 11:26 PM

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys: <br /><em>For the Last Time</em> at 50

Earlier this month was the 50th anniversary of the last time Bob Wills recorded with his legendary band, the Texas Playboys. The sessions that became the album known as For the Last Time were recorded at Sumet-Bernet Studios (aka Sumet Sound Studios), 7027 Twin Hills Avenue, Dallas, on December 3...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 29, 2023 12:24 PM

Bob Wills discography in Record Research

In 1966 and 1967, a trio of researchers, Glenn White, Bob Healy, and Bob Pinson, published a series of articles in Record Research: The Magazine of Record Information and Statistics, covering the life and career of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. The introduction to this four-part series mentioned that...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 23, 2020 12:59 AM

Smoky Dacus: Texas Playboys drummer remembers his work with Bob Wills

A little diversion from all the political stuff: I just came across a fascinating unpublished 1981 interview with Smoky Dacus (1911-2001), the original drummer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. The interview was conducted by Scott K. Fish for Modern Drummer magazine. Dacus tells of his early days growing...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 31, 2020 11:17 AM

Texas Playboys under new leadership

Tomorrow night (Saturday, March 2, 2019) is the annual Bob Wills birthday celebration at Cain's Ballroom, the site of weekly dances and daily radio broadcasts for bands fronted Bob and his brother Johnnie Lee for a quarter-century, from 1934 to 1959. Doors open at 6 p.m. Western Swing historian John...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 1, 2019 5:44 PM

Tommy Allsup, RIP

UPDATE: The funeral for Tommy Allsup will be held Wednesday, January 18, 2017, at 11 a.m., at First Baptist Church, Owasso. Flowers may be sent to Mowery Funeral Home 9110 N. Garnett Rd. Owasso, OK 74055. Legendary guitarist Tommy Allsup died yesterday, January 11, 2017, at the age of 85....

Posted by Michael Bates on January 12, 2017 12:06 AM

Merle Haggard, RIP: His role in the western swing revival

Legendary country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard died Wednesday on his 79th birthday. It might be going too far to say he saved western swing from oblivion, but Merle Haggard's efforts to honor Bob Wills went a long way toward introducing a new generation to the sound. In 1946 or...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 8, 2016 1:52 PM

Al Stricklin remembers Bob Wills at Glenoak

On Friday, September 6, 1935, Al Stricklin arrived in Tulsa with his wife to take a job as piano player for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. After joining Bob and the band for the noon broadcast at the Barrel Food Palace and then rehearsing that afternoon at the home...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 12, 2016 12:25 AM

The oral history of Western Swing

I've been reading a very interesting book, The Jazz of the Southwest: An Oral History of Western Swing by Jean A. Boyd (1998, University of Texas Press). Boyd is professor of musicology at Baylor University. The book begins by tracing the overall history of the genre, as it began in...

Posted by Michael Bates on January 7, 2016 10:30 PM

Okie Boogie remix

A reader sends along this interesting remix of "Oakie Boogie" by a Bristol-based DJ called Howla. (That's Bristol, England -- another indication of the international audience for western swing and related genres of American music.) The song "Oakie Boogie" (spelled "Okie Boogie" after the "a" was dropped from the toponym),...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 19, 2015 4:57 PM

Original Texas Playboys and Eldon Shamblin recordings; Tiny Moore interview

Bob Wills' passing in 1975 happened just as the music he made famous was enjoying a resurgence of interest, a comeback that might be traceable to Merle Haggard's decision to share his superstar spotlight with the music that shaped him. In 1970, Haggard invited six members of the Texas Playboys...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 30, 2015 2:09 PM

Eldon Shamblin and Smokey Dacus tell tales of the Texas Playboys

As the rhythm section of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, rhythm guitarist Eldon Shamblin and drummer Smokey Dacus, along with Al Stricklin on piano, defined the beat that drove dancers across the southwestern U. S. in the 1930s from the band's home base at Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom. Dacus was...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 4, 2014 11:07 PM

Bob Wills's Fresno ranch house to be saved

Earlier this year it was learned that a new subdivision threatened the site of Bob Wills's Triple BBB Ranch in Fresno. The famous western swing bandleader and his family lived on the 80-acre ranch in the mid-1940s. Local preservationists were too late to get the ranch on the historic register...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 10, 2013 1:48 PM

Curly Lewis and Reece Anderson, RIP

We've lost two more western swing greats in the last couple of weeks. Tulsa fiddler and vocalist Julian "Curly" Lewis died Sunday at the age of 88. Lewis spent much of his career with Johnnie Lee Wills's band in the late '40s and '50s, but he also toured and performed...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 16, 2013 7:26 PM

Bob Wills tour bus returns to Tulsa

About four years ago, Lee Roy Chapman set out on a quest to find Bob Wills's 1948 Flxible Clipper tour bus. He found Bob's bus, and a companion -- the bus of Wills's good friend, western swing bandleader Hoyle Nix -- rusting in a field near Big Spring, Texas, Nix's...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 13, 2013 1:14 AM

Bob Wills Fresno home endangered

ABOVE: Bob Wills and his wife Betty hang out the washing to dry at the Triple B Ranch in Fresno, California The Triple B Ranch in Fresno, California, Bob Wills's home in the last half of the 1940s, is to be demolished and replaced with a housing subdivision, despite...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 24, 2013 7:33 PM

Bob Wills 108th Birthday Bash: Cain's Ballroom, March 2, 2013

Tomorrow (Saturday) night, March 2, 2013, the historic Cain's Ballroom at 423 N. Main St. in downtown Tulsa's Bob Wills District will ring with the music that made it famous. Bob Wills' Texas Playboys, led by vocalist Leon Rausch and guitarist Tommy Allsup, will headline the annual Bob Wills Birthday...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 1, 2013 11:37 AM

Johnny Cuviello, "Texas Drummer Boy," RIP

In the last year or two we've lost several Texas Playboys from the 1940s: guitarist Jimmy Wyble, singing sisters Dean McKinney Moore and Evelyn McKinney Wills, and now Johnny Cuviello. Johnny Cuviello, drummer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in 1946 and 1947 and one of the last surviving...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 10, 2012 11:16 PM

Cherokee Maiden (not 1/32, the real deal)

Here's Merle Haggard, singing lead and doing his best imitation of Bob Wills' hollers, with three Texas Playboys: Johnny Gimble playing fiddle, Tiny Moore (next to Merle, holding a fiddle) and Eldon Shamblin (playing his Stratocaster) singing harmony. Let's send this one out to Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren in Massachusetts. Tiny...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 31, 2012 12:32 AM

Let's call it Wills Park

The Wills boys, from left to right, youngest to oldest: Brothers Billy Jack Wills, Luther J. "Luke" Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills, and Bob Wills, and their father John Tompkins "Uncle John" Wills. From BobWills.com The George Kaiser Family Foundation is looking for public input on the name of the...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 16, 2012 10:10 PM