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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

Western swing videos, de-Flashified

In writing the previous entry, I came across an old draft, from October 2006, with embed code for four YouTube videos featuring western swing: Noel Boggs playing "Alabama Bound" as a steel guitar solo, Bobby Koefer with Truitt Cunningham and the San Antonio Rose Band performing his extremely animated version...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 29, 2023 5:16 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

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

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

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

Bobby Koefer plays "Sleepwalk"

Texas Playboys steel guitarist Bobby Koefer and Jim Paul Blair (who performs as Hank Williams in the show "Hankerin' for Hank") play Santo and Johnny's steel guitar classic "Sleepwalk": And here is Bobby about 60 years earlier, taking a chorus on "Sittin' on Top of the World." The technique hasn't...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 9, 2013 12:14 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 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

Bob Wills birthday celebration tonight at Cain's Ballroom

Tonight, March 3, 2012, Bob Wills' Texas Playboys will perform at Tulsa's historic Cain's Ballroom in celebration of the 107th anniversary of the birth of the band's founder. Tulsa's Round-Up Boys will lead off the celebration. Doors open at 6:30 and the show begins at 7. Tickets are available...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 3, 2012 1:10 AM

Eldon Shamblin, Tiny Moore, Dean McKinney Moore 1981 interview online

On March 10, 1981, Tom Diamant recorded an hour-long interview with three veteran members of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Eldon Shamblin (guitarist, arranger, and sometime band manager), Tiny Moore (mandolin, fiddle, and occasional vocals), and Tiny's wife Dean McKinney Moore, one half of the McKinney Sisters. Diamant, whose...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 29, 2011 12:35 AM

San Antonio Roses

It was the song that took Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys "from hamburgers to steaks." In 1938, they took a fiddle tune called "Spanish Two Step" and ran the melody backwards; the result was a popular instrumental. ("Jazz violinist Joe Venuti, for example, told Wills and members of the...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 11, 2011 10:21 PM

Signature Symphony to perform Bob Wills music at Cain's

Tulsa's Signature Symphony, led by conductor Barry Epperley, will perform a program of music by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys this coming Saturday night, April 2, 2011, at Cain's Ballroom. The event is a fundraiser for Signature Symphony and the orchestra's outreach to schools, and tickets are $45 for...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 30, 2011 1:53 AM

Original Texas Playboys on Austin City Limits 1976

My wish was granted, at least partly. In 1976, the second-ever episode of Austin City Limits featured Asleep at the Wheel and Bob Wills' Original Texas Playboys. Here's the first 30 minutes of the Texas Playboys' hour-long segment. The video and audio are out of sync in places, but that...

Posted by Michael Bates on February 22, 2011 2:16 AM

Original Texas Playboys final concert, 1986

James Shamblin, nephew of legendary guitarist Eldon Shamblin, has digitized and uploaded the final concert of Bob Wills' Original Texas Playboys, November 16, 1986, at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas. I've organized all 13 parts into a YouTube playlist, so you can watch the entire 90...

Posted by Michael Bates on February 21, 2011 8:24 PM