Bob Wills (1905 to 1975) was a Texas breakdown fiddler who built a dance band around his fiddle and called the music western swing. He led Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys from 1934 until heart attacks and a stroke ended his career in 1969. His 1940 record New San Antonio Rose sold a million copies. He entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.
Why Wills matters
Before Wills, a fiddle band played for the dance in a barn. Wills put that fiddle in front of horns, drums, steel guitar, and electric guitar and played the same breakdowns and waltzes in a ballroom. He kept the old tunes, Ida Red, Faded Love, Take Me Back to Tulsa, and gave them a swing beat. His band’s jazz phrasing seeped into Texas contest fiddling, and swing tunes from the Playboys book fill jam sessions today. When a jam calls a swing tune, someone in that circle learned it from a Wills record.
Life and career
James Robert Wills was born on March 6, 1905, near Kosse in Limestone County, Texas, the first of ten children. His father, John Wills, was a champion fiddler who beat Eck Robertson in contests. The family moved to Hall County in the Texas Panhandle in 1913. Bob learned mandolin and fiddle at home and played his first ranch dance at age ten in 1915. He also learned blues from Black families who worked the cotton fields near the Wills farm.
Wills moved to Fort Worth in 1929 and met guitarist Herman Arnspiger. The two made their first recordings for Brunswick in November 1929, which were never issued. Singer Milton Brown joined them in 1930, and the group became the Light Crust Doughboys under flour salesman W. Lee O’Daniel. Brown left in September 1932, and Wills left soon after.
In early 1934 Wills moved to Oklahoma and formed Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. From February 1934 the band broadcast from Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa over station KVOO. The Playboys made their first records in September 1935. Steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe joined in 1935 and guitarist Eldon Shamblin in 1937. By 1940 the band had 16 members, including fiddler Jesse Ashlock, and New San Antonio Rose made Wills a national star. He went to Hollywood and appeared in 19 films between 1940 and 1945.
Wills joined the Army in December 1942 and left with a medical discharge in 1943. He rebuilt the band in California, where it drew bigger crowds than the swing orchestras of Harry James and Benny Goodman in January 1944. Postwar hits included Smoke on the Water, Stay a Little Longer, Roly Poly, and Sugar Moon. Singer Tommy Duncan left in 1948. Wills moved back to Oklahoma in 1949 and opened the Bob Wills Ranch House in Dallas.
Audiences shrank through the 1950s. Wills had heart attacks in 1962 and 1963 and broke up the Playboys. The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in October 1968. In May 1969 a stroke paralyzed his right side and ended his playing. Merle Haggard’s 1970 tribute album brought new interest, and in December 1973 Wills led a Playboys reunion session for the album For the Last Time. He had another stroke during those sessions and never recovered. He died of pneumonia in Fort Worth on May 13, 1975. He is buried in Memorial Park in Tulsa.
Playing style
Wills was a dance fiddler first. He played breakdowns, waltzes, and rags with a strong, sawing bow and an old-time tone. He set the tune, gave the beat, and called the solos, and his shouted “ah-haa” and spoken asides ran through nearly every record. Jazz phrasing in the band came from fiddlers like Jesse Ashlock and later Johnny Gimble, and from guitarists like Shamblin.
The Wills mix was ragtime, frontier fiddle tunes, New Orleans jazz, blues, Mexican songs, and big band swing. On a fiddle tune he stayed close to the old melody and let the rhythm section swing it. That is why Ida Red and Faded Love from his records work in a fiddle jam with no horns at all.
Influences and legacy
Wills learned from his father, a champion frontier fiddler, and from the blues he heard in the cotton fields. He modeled his singing on Emmett Miller and Al Bernard. His band shaped Johnny Gimble, who played in the Playboys and became the top Texas swing fiddler of the next generation. Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Asleep at the Wheel all built on his sound, and Chuck Berry turned Ida Red into Maybellene. The Texas legislature made western swing the official state music in 2011.
Signature tunes and songs
New San Antonio Rose Faded Love Take Me Back to Tulsa Ida Red Stay a Little Longer Roly Poly.
Essential recordings
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (1958) The Bob Wills Anthology (1973) For the Last Time (1974) The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 4: You’re From Texas (1985)
Awards and honors
Elected to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (1957) Country Music Hall of Fame (1968) Honored by the Texas governor and legislature (1969) Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with His Texas Playboys, Musical Influence category (1999) Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) Texas Fiddlers Hall of Fame (2011) Western swing named the official State Music of Texas (2011) Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame (2021)
What to learn from Wills
Learn Faded Love from a Playboys record. It is a slow waltz in first position, and it teaches the long, singing bow strokes and the slides that Texas players use on every waltz round at a contest. The technique to steal is his rhythm feel on a breakdown. Put on Ida Red and play the melody against the band’s swing beat without rushing. Wills stayed simple and let the band swing. At a jam, that means holding the tune steady and leaving room for the guitar and mandolin to push the beat around you.
Sources
Bob Wills, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Wills, James Robert (Bob), Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Texas Fiddlers Hall of Fame, Fiddlers’ Frolics Bob Wills, Wikipedia Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, For the Last Time, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more swing and Texas fiddlers. Johnny Gimble played in the Playboys and carried the swing fiddle sound to Nashville. His father’s contest rival Eck Robertson made the first commercial fiddle record. Benny Thomasson built the Texas contest style that grew up beside the Wills sound.