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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...
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...
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...
Al Clauser and His Oklahoma Outlaws and Patti Page
Another blog article started long ago, July 26, 2021, but never quite finished, until now. In 1982, Oklahoma was celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood, and it was one of the focuses (along with Korea) of the Smithsonian Institution's 1982 Festival of American Folklife. The program book...
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...
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....
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...
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...
Bob Wills Frontier Frolics
Soundies from 1946, featuring Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. This is the same lineup as the early Tiffany Transcriptions sessions: Tommy Duncan and the McKinney Sisters (Dean and Evelyn) on vocals, Bob Wills, Joe Holley, and Louis Tierney on fiddle, Noel Boggs on steel guitar, Millard Kelso on piano,...
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),...
Johnny Gimble, RIP
Legendary fiddler Johnny Gimble died today at the age of 88. Gimble was hired by Bob Wills for the Texas Playboys in 1949. After a few years on the road, he retired to barbering and playing music on the weekends. But in 1968 he moved to Nashville and made...
Roy Clark, Jana Jae, Tulsa Playboys to perform at Gilcrease Museum Helmerich Center opening weekend
This coming weekend, September 6 and 7, 2014, is the opening weekend of the Helmerich Center for American Research, a unit of the City of Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. The new facility is adjacent to the museum on Gilcrease Museum Road. A weekend full of free events is planned, including Native...
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...
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...
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...
Johnny Gimble's swinging fiddle
I thought I read some sad news about legendary western swing fiddler Johnny Gimble tonight, and I'm hoping I imagined seeing it. I'll hold off on publishing what I thought I read until I can confirm it, but in the meantime please remember Johnny and his family in your prayers,...
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...
Tulsa Playboys free western swing dance Thursday
In honor of their first anniversary, the Tulsa Playboys are throwing a dance this Thursday, June 14, 2012, at the legendary Cain's Ballroom at 423 N. Main St. in Tulsa's Bob Wills District. They usually have one dance a month, but this month is special -- free admission! Legendary country...
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...
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...
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