Pop! Goes The Country (1974-1982)

Ralph Emery, Barbara Mandrell, Anne Murray, Don King in 1978

In 1974, Nashville production company Show Biz, Inc. launched this attempt to cash in on the powerful influence of Pop music, on the Country Music world (Hence, the title), as well as to extend it's success streak begun with another of its productions: The Porter Wagoner Show.

Originally hosted by famed Country DeeJay Ralph Emery, this weekly syndicated music series premiered on September 7th, 1974, and was an immediate hit. The half-hour presentation featured performances by popular, well-established names in Country Music, as well as many up-and-coming performers, whose careers received a well-deserved boost from their appearances. Such Nashville luminaries as George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell, Sonny James, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, and Chet Atkins appeared on the show, over the years (Some of them, numerous times), and many newcomers (at the time) such as Reba McEntire, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, and Jon Conlee got some early-career national TV exposure on the show. Each episode featured two or three musical performances by the guests, between which, Emery would conduct brief interviews of the Performers.

Emery left the show after its 6th season, and, in 1980, Tom T. Hall - 'The Old Storyteller' - took over the hosting duties. The show was then called Tom T. Hall's Pop! Goes The Country, and Hall, himself performed at least one number for each show, and chatted with his guest stars between performances.

The show underwent a major format change, for it's 9th, and final season, when it moved to Opryland U.S.A.'s Gaslight Theatre. It's title became Tom T.'s Pop! Goes The Country Club, and it took place in a nightclub-like setting, where, between Guests' performances, Hall played straight man to comedian Jim Varney, and his various characters, in brief comedy sketches that always involved the guest stars.

Artists Of Then, Now, And Forever ~ Forever Country (2016)

In celebration of “The 50th Annual CMA Awards,” CMA has created the biggest music video in Country Music history. Titled “Forever Country,” the single and accompanying music video features 30 CMA Award-winning acts. This single was produced by CMA Board member and CMA Award winner Shane McAnally and the video was directed by Grammy Award-winning director Joseph Kahn.

Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Little Big Town, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Randy Travis (doesn't sing), Blake Shelton, George Strait, Kacey Musgraves, Eric Church, Ronnie Milsap, Charley Pride, Dierks Bentley, Trisha Yearwood, Lady A, Darius Rucker, Martina McBride, Jason Aldean, Rascal Flatts, Willie Nelson, Brooks & Dunn, Alabama, Brett Eldredge, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton

The Unlikely Rise Of Hick-Hop
A hot new genre blends country hooks with rap phrasing and a healthy dose of mud
by Hannah Karp | July 3, 2013 | Wall Street Journal

Lenny Cooper is a top seller in the hick-hop genre.

From Georgia to Texas this weekend, the stars of a budding musical genre known as "hick-hop" will perform in swamp-like off-road-vehicle parks. Singing songs that fuse hip-hop with country music, the bands will celebrate the popular rural pastime of driving trucks, lawn mowers, golf carts and even jacked-up grocery carts—all through the mud.

The music, anathema to country-music traditionalists because of its heavy drum and bass, doesn't get much airplay on major radio stations. But the all-ages mud-park shows, which feature dancers that shimmy around chain-link-fence poles cemented onto truck beds, can draw upward of 10,000 fans. They tend to spend freely on CDs and merchandise, from moonshine to Mason jars filled with the mud used in a band's music videos.

Three of the genre's top artists—Colt Ford, Lenny Cooper and the LACS (short for the Loud Ass Crackers)—have albums among the top 75 on Billboard's country music chart this week with 1,800 Wal-Mart stores around the country stocking their records. Average Joe's Entertainment, a Nashville, Tenn.-based independent record label that specializes in the emerging genre, has sold nearly 200,000 "Mud Digger" compilation albums featuring its various artists; the fourth "Mud Digger" album hit stores Tuesday.

The unlikely rise of this niche genre, despite its near-absence from radio, shows how radically the music industry's playbook for success has changed in recent years. Record sales have tanked nearly 60% since their peak in 2000, with the proliferation of outlets offering music free or at a nominal cost. So live performance and merchandise sales represent an increasingly large chunk of a typical band's income.

To maximize concert revenue, hick-hop artists are using some of the same technologies that have eroded record sales to ferret out paying fans. They're routing tours based on data from services like Songkick, TuneCore and Pandora that track where people are buying or listening to their music most frequently.

Big retailers like Wal-Mart have also become a way for artists to reach millions of listeners without radio or record-label deals. Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 10% of total music sales in the U.S., according to the market researcher NPD Group, has taken to buying music directly from musicians in recent years, selling millions of albums even as industrywide sales decline.

The increase in bands circumventing traditional channels has given rise to a number of quirky musical styles. Though hick-hop has been more commercially successful than most, Internet radio service Pandora counts 400 genres popular among its 70 million active users, from psychobilly—a fusion of rockabilly and punk—to trap, a hip-hop-influenced subset of electronic music.

Mud bogging has been a popular activity for decades, especially in the South, but the mud world's musical tradition is recent, with live-music stages sprouting up in at least 162 off-road-vehicle parks over the past five years. Fans typically pay about $40 a weekend to cook out with friends and play in the mud with a wide range of vehicles, from $100,000 trucks to homemade contraptions fashioned from tanks, lawn mowers, even king-size mattresses, all jacked up on giant tires forbidden on city streets.

The scantily dressed crowd includes grade-schoolers, teenagers driving their parents' farm equipment and professionals who burn thousands of dollars each week on truck repairs, only to demolish their rides again the next weekend in events like truck tug of war. Daisy Duke shorts, bikinis and anything camouflage are popular fashion choices; homemade moonshine and beer are on tap and truck brands tend to be American, as Colt Ford notes in his "Drivin' Around Song": "U.S.A., Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford, raising a little hell and praising the Lord."

The underground world even has its own magazines: Mud Life sells about 70,000 copies a year, thanks in part to its "Mud Girl of the Month" feature. The community's official afterparty is known as Club Mud, started by two friends who constructed a makeshift stage with speakers and lighting on a yard cart made for hauling hay. Now the pair throws weekly parties for up to 8,000 people from Missouri to Michigan.

The culture's unofficial soundtrack was born during the summer of 2008 after Colt Ford—a former pro golfer with a devoted Myspace following—decided to launch the record label Average Joe's with veteran hip-hop producer Shannon Houchins. The music featured catchy country hooks and traditional country instruments like fiddles and washboards, but Mr. Ford spoke the lyrics instead of singing them, focusing on rural themes like hunting, fishing and driving big trucks through mud. After releasing Mr. Ford's debut album on iTunes, Mr. Houchins got a call from the owner of an off-road vehicle park in South Carolina offering Mr. Ford $3,500 to play a show there. About 4,700 fans turned out, snapping up $10,000 worth of merchandise, as many fans had gotten so wet and muddy that they were happy to buy a fresh change of clothes.

Mr. Houchins, who helped artists like Bubba Sparxxx mix country and hip-hop in the past but had never before tried to hawk the final product, said he realized he'd found an untapped market. He began reaching out to scores of other off-road-vehicle parks. Since most weren't equipped to host concerts, he connected them to ticket printers, security staff and stage builders. The parks booked a string of mud-bog dates for Mr. Ford, and the LACS played as an opening act.

Thousands of fans jammed onto rural two-lane roads to see Mr. Ford and the LACS rap about the mud lifestyle, and they soon began seeking CDs in local stores. Mr. Ford's "No Trash In My Trailer" has lines like: "I'm mud boggin, camouflagen, a ballgame is what I'm watchen. I work hard, mow the yard, fish, hunt, knuckle scar, change oil, plow the soil, love a boat country boy." Mr. Ford has sold more than one million albums to date.

That year, Wal-Mart started getting calls from stores across the Southeast from customers complaining that mud-themed music was only available online, said Tiffany Couch, sales director of Select-O-Hits, a division of closely held Anderson Merchandisers that Wal-Mart hires to supply its 4,000 Supercenter stores with CDs. Cautiously, she said, they began stocking several hundred Wal-Mart stores in the region with the music, waiting to make sure it sold before expanding to other locations.

Wal-Mart has long been supportive of little-known community artists—especially in the country-music world, Ms. Couch said. The company sponsored a free concert series in its store parking lots in 1995, for example, that featured up-and-coming country acts such as the Smokin' Armadillos and the Moffats. But hick-hop's quick success came as a surprise. "It's atypical in country music to have achieved this level of success without radio being the main driver—this has been kind of an enigma," said Ms. Couch.

To be sure, Wal-Mart's power in the music industry is fast diminishing as demand for physical CDs shrinks. But country fans have been far more reluctant than others to go digital. Big-box retailers account for about 50% of country-music sales, compared with 25% of music sales in all genres, according to Nielsen Entertainment analyst Dave Bakula.

Wal-Mart has made a string of exclusive deals in recent years to release new works by aging superstars like the Eagles and Journey. For budding acts, the stores present a valuable opportunity to connect with millions of potential fans on a national scale.

Jason Lathrop, an air-conditioning contractor in Jacksonville, Fla., said he bought every album in Average Joe's catalog he could find because he spends most of his free time driving his souped-up Ford Excursion "out in the middle of a cow pasture somewhere," where the music has fast became ubiquitous.

To assure Wal-Mart about its prospects for selling more mud music outside the Southeast, Average Joe's last year showed the retailer "heat maps" drawn up by Pandora. The maps showed where Pandora users were listening to the new genre most frequently, landing the records in nearly half of Wal-Mart's Supercenters nationwide. Average Joe's also began using Pandora's heat maps to route artists' tours through unlikely areas with high fan concentrations, like Ohio, Indiana and the Pacific Northwest.

Pandora founder Tim Westergren said he started a pilot program over the past year and half which shares these maps with about 50 different groups. The company has finally amassed enough listeners so that bands can convert the data into significant concert ticket sales. More than 10,000 of the artists Pandora plays have now been listened to at least 250,000 times each, he said.

"It's the folks that can really make the live thing work that are going to thrive," said Mr. Westergren, adding that Average Joe's "has been way out in front in terms of understanding how valuable" the maps can be.

The LACS have now sold nearly 200,000 albums and an additional 25,000 singles on Apple's iTunes store, despite hardly any play on radio. They will release their third album in August, as they quadruple their touring business.

Country rap dates back to at least the late '90s, and before that country legends like Johnny Cash used recitation instead of singing on some of their most popular tracks. But in the past, country rappers have struggled to sell records for lack of a defined audience. Though the two genres share the same roots and many of the same general themes—drinking, driving around and having a good time—their fusion has been controversial, says Adam Gussow, a Southern Studies professor at the University of Mississippi.

"Country and rap have achieved much of their contemporary popularity by configuring themselves in the national imagination as proudly radicalized genres: the voice of the unreconstructed Southern pastoral and the rural white-working class on the one hand, and the voice of inner-city frustration, gunplay and rump-shaking Vegas-style fantasy on the other," Mr. Gussow wrote in a 2010 essay in Southern Cultures journal.

But the new hick-hoppers have targeted a specific audience, taking more care than their predecessors to keep their language relatively family-friendly and the themes lighthearted and violence-free.

"We never killed nobody, so we can't rap about no gangster stuff," Mr. Sharpe told a half-baffled, half-riveted crowd at the Country Music Association's flagship music festival in Nashville last month, as the band used synthesizers and 808 drum machines to accompany their hit tunes like "Kickin' Up Mud." Lyrics reflected their lifestyle: "Everyday get stuck in a big mud hole/Just sit right there and watch the sun get low."

Hick-hop artists say the mud world is endlessly inspiring. Lenny Cooper, an artist better known as the "Mud Digger King," said that after he noticed scores of fans in Florida and Georgia installing homemade stripper poles in the back of their trucks, he wrote a song called "Rodeo," an ode to truck-bed strippers. He also wrote a song about a technique many of his mud-crazy fans used to center themselves: "Just somethin bout chillin out where the corn grows/I like to clear my mind down an old back road."

Mr. Houchins, of Average Joe's, said he has been receiving about 500 demo tapes a week from country rappers lately. "That tells me that we're creating a new genre," said Mr. Houchins. "But they haven't made a Grammy category for us yet."

Made In Japan (2015)

“Made In Japan” is the remarkable story of Tomi Fujiyama, the first female Japanese country music star. From playing the USO circuit throughout Asia to headlining in Las Vegas and recording 7 albums for Columbia records, Tomi’s career culminates in a 1964 performance at The Grand Ole Opry where she followed Johnny Cash and received the only standing ovation of the night. Forty years later, Tomi and her husband set out on a journey through Japan and across the United States to fulfill a dream of performing at The Grand Ole Opry one more time. “Made in Japan” is a funny yet poignant multi-cultural journey through music, marriage, and the impact of the corporate world on the dreams of one woman.

videos:
Made In Japan trailer
Tennessee Waltz
Your Cheatin' Heart
Tennessee Yodel Polka
Help Me Make It Through The Night
Shenandoah

Jerry Jeff Walker (March 16, 1942 - October 23, 2020)
By Joseph Hudak | October 24, 2020 | Rolling Stone

Jerry Jeff Walker, the “Mr. Bojangles” songwriter and a pioneer of the “cosmic cowboy” sound that would evolve into outlaw country, died Friday after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 78. Walker’s publicist confirmed his death to Rolling Stone.

Born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York, in 1942, Walker made his way south, living for a time in the Florida Keys and in New Orleans, where he took up his stage name. In 1971, he landed in Austin, Texas, and became a fixture of the local music scene, where artists like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Michael Martin Murphey were performing a new progressive style of hippie-country.

Two years later, Walker released his landmark album ¡Viva Terlingua!, a stripped-down, ramshackle and occasionally rowdy LP recorded live in a dance hall in Luckenbach, Texas. ¡Viva Terlingua! — featuring songs like “London Homesick Blues,” written by Gary P. Nunn, a member of Walker’s Lost Gonzo Band, and Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother” — is regarded as a sacred text of the early outlaw country movement and, particularly, the progressive cosmic sound that preceded it.

“It’s still the quintessential Texas album as far as explaining how it all was before Austin City Limits,” Walker told Rolling Stone in 2018. In fact, “London Homesick Blues,” which was actually sung by Nunn on ¡Viva Terlingua!, would serve as the theme song of the TV concert series for nearly 30 years.

“Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother,” about a ne’er-do-well “kickin hippies asses and raising hell,” stands as the album’s cult-favorite number. More of a sketch by Ray Wylie Hubbard than a finished song when Walker and his band decided to record it for ¡Viva Terlingua!, Walker’s bass player Bob Livingston called up Hubbard to write another verse.

“I just wrote the second verse there over phone. I said, ‘He sure likes to drink,’ and I think I was drinking Falstaff Beer, so I said that. [And] that was it. I pretty much hadn’t even thought about it,” Hubbard told Rolling Stone. It’s Livingston who spells out each letter of “M-O-T-H-E-R” (“M is for the mud flaps you gave me for my pickup truck”…”R is for redneck”) in the song’s bridge.

Like the protagonist in “Redneck Mother,” Walker himself was known for volatility, both onstage and off (the inspiration for “Mr. Bojangles” came from a chance meeting with a street performer in a New Orleans drunk tank). His concerts were often unpredictable. “An act that was full of thrills and suspense” is how the late Texas journalist Bud Shrake described Walker’s shows, comparing them to NASCAR races.

But it’s “Mr. Bojangles” that gave Walker his greatest success and paved the way for him to record ¡Viva Terlingua!. Written and recorded by Walker for his 1968 album Mr. Bojangles, the song became a Top 10 hit for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970 with artists as varied as Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Nina Simone, Neil Diamond, and Sammy Davis Jr. all recording versions.

Still, Walker remains most identified for his contributions to the Texas music scene and to country music in general. The dance hall door that adorns the cover of ¡Viva Terlingua! hangs on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

“‘Outlaw country’ made it sound like you had to go to jail to be an artist, but it’s just that some people like Waylon and Willie were outside the business [norm],” Walker told Rolling Stone. “People said, ‘We’re different, but we’re not hillbilly country.’ We didn’t blacken our teeth and wear baggy pants, we just liked cowboys and played like that.”

click on record to listen

The Monkees

Papa Gene's Blues
What Am I Doing Hangin' Round
I'll Spend My Life With You
Good Clean Fun
Never Tell A Woman Yes
Nine Times Blue
Naked Persimmon
Michael Nesmith ~ Propinquity
Michael Nesmith And The First National Band ~ Joanne

Michael Nesmith And The First National Band ~ Silver Moon
Michael Nesmith And The First National Band ~ Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette
Michael Nesmith ~ Harmony Constant
Micky Dolenz ~ Quiet Desperation

Texas Jim Robertson And The Panhandle Punchers ~ Jaw, Jaw, Yap, Yap, Yap! (1950)
The Skillet Lickers ~ Ya Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Aroun' (1926)
The Aiken County String Band ~ Carolina Stompdown (1927)
Vernon Dalhart ~ Wreck Of The Old 97 (1924)
The Blue Sky Boys ~ Are You From Dixie (1936)

Coon Creek Girls ~ Banjo Pickin' Girl (1944)
Floyd County Ramblers ~ Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party (1930)
Nelstone's Hawaiians ~ Just Because (1928)
Leake County Revelers ~ Johnson Gal (1927)
Gene Autry ~ A Yodeling Hobo (1930)

Faron Young ~ Unmitigated Gall (1967)
Nat King Cole ~ One Has My Name, The Other Has My Heart (1962)
Natalie Cole ~ Your Lonely Heart (1979)
The Davis Sisters ~ I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know (1953)
Liz Anderson ~ Mama Spank (1968)

Thanks for posting this

Mac Davis (January 21, 1942 - September 29, 2020)

In The Ghetto

A Little Less Conversation

The Jacksons visited Nashville's Municipal Auditorium in August of 1981 and grabbed this photo opportunity with William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys immediately after serenading him with Elvira. L-R: Marlon Jackson, Joe Moscheo (former Prophets and Imperials), B. James Lowry (guitar Oak Ridge Boys and Rambos), William Lee Golden (Oak Ridge Boys), Michael Jackson, Jackie Jackson, Donna Jean (ORB office staff), Rusty Golden, Tito and Randy Jackson. Photo: August 31, 1981

Tex Ritter is one of the early singing cowboys in Hollywood movies. He released records including children's albums. Tex is also the father of actor John Ritter from Three's Company.

videos:

Rye Whiskey (1936)

When You Leave Don't Slam The Door (1946)

Lady Killin' Cowboy (1935)

High Noon (1963)

Ranch Party (1957 episode featuring Johnny Cash, Bobby Helms, & Patsy Cline. Tex was the host of this music variety show)

Gunsmoke (1955 TV show theme)

Tex Ritter & Mantan Moreland ~ The Boll Weevil (1939) This song later became a big pop and R&B hit for Brook Benton in the 1960s with a slightly different title.

Comin' After Jinny (1976)

My Woman Ain't Pretty (1968)

Hillbilly Heaven (1962)

Jingle, Jangle, Jingle (1948)

Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Tex Ritter ~ I Walk the Line / The Wabash Cannonball (1970 episode of The Johnny Cash Show)

1st singles:

Emmylou Harris ~ I'll Be Your Baby Tonight / I'll Never Fall In Love Again (1969)
Roy Clark ~ Please Mr. Mayor / Puddin' (1958)
Willie Nelson ~ Lumberjack / No Place For Me (1957)
Charley Pride ~ The Snakes Crawl At Night / The Atlantic Coastal Line (1966)
Waylon Jennings ~ Jole Blon / When Sin Stops (1959)

Dolly Parton ~ Puppy Love / Girl Left Alone (1959)
George Jones ~ Let Him Know / You All Goodnight (1954)

Little Brenda Lee ~ Jambalaya (On The Bayou) / Bigelow 6-200 (1956)
Merle Haggard ~ Sing A Sad Song / You Don't Even Try (1963)
Johnny Cash And The Tennessee Two ~ So Doggone Lonesome / Folsom Prison Blues (1955)

Conway Twitty ~ I Need Your Lovin' / Born To Sing The Blues (1957)
Randy Travis ~ She's My Woman / All The Praises (1979)
Reba McEntire ~ I Don't Want To Be A One Night Stand (1976)
John Anderson ~ I've Got A Feelin' (1977)
Wally Fowler And The Oak Ridge Quartet (Oak Ridge Boys) ~ Dese Bones A-Gwinna Rise Again / On The Jericho Road (1946)

Kenny Rogers ~ For You Alone / I've Got A Lot To Learn (1958)
Hank Williams And The Country Boys ~ Wealth Won't Save Your Soul / When God Comes And Gathers His Jewels (1947)
Tammy Wynette ~ Apartment #9 / I'm Not Mine To Give (1966)
Loretta Lynn ~ Heartaches Meet Mr. Blues / New Rainbow (1960)
Buck Owens ~ It Don't Show On Me / Down On The Corner Of Love (1956)

Dolly Parton, Ken Mansfield, Ringo Starr

Paul McCartney and his family chat with Dolly and Porter Wagoner while visiting Opryland USA in Nashville on June 16, 1974. Pictured from Left - Paul McCartney, Heather McCartney, Linda McCartney, Stella McCartney, Dolly, and Porter. (Photo Credit: Jack Corn • The Tennessean)

The Chicks & Beyoncé

Dale Hawkins ~ L.A. Memphis Tyler Texas
John Randolph Marr ~ Hello L.A., Bye-Bye Birmingham
Johnny Adams ~ Georgia Morning Dew
Mac Davis ~ Lucas Was A Redneck
Bob Darin ~ Light Blue
Jim Ford ~ I'm Gonna Make Her Love Me
Gray Fox ~ Hawg Frog
Link Wray ~ Fire And Brimstone
Bobby Charles ~ Street People
Cherokee ~ Funky Business
Tony Joe White ~ Stud Spider
Dennis The Fox ~ Piledriver
Larry Jon Wilson ~ Ohoopee River Bottomland
Bobbie Gentry ~ He Made A Woman Out Of Me / (Beat Club performance in 1970)
Gritz ~ Bayou Country
Johnny Jenkins ~ I Walk On Gilded Splinters

Billy Swan ~ Don't Be Cruel
Bob Darin ~ Me And Mr. Hohner
Hoyt Axton ~ California Women
Townes Van Zandt ~ Hunger Child Blues
Thomas Jefferson Kaye ~ Collection Box
Willie Nelson ~ Shotgun Willie
Jackie DeShannon ~ The Weight
Gene Clark & Doug Dillard ~ Don't Let Me Down
Bill Wilson ~ Pay Day Give Away
Dolly Parton ~ Getting Happy
Larry Williams & Johnny "Guitar" Watson With The Kaleidoscope ~ Nobody
Jim Ford ~ Rising Sign
J. J. Cale ~ Cajun Moon
Donnie Fritts ~ Sumpin' Funky Going On
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition ~ Tulsa Turnaround
Great Speckled Bird ~ Long Long Time To Get Old
Willis Alan Ramsey ~ Northeast Texas Women

Loved the Oak Ridge Boys and Alabama and Don Williams

Dana and Lauren ~ California Love (2011)
Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby, John Anderson ~ Super Freak (2007)
John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band feat. David Lee Roth ~ Jamie's Cryin' (2006)
John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band feat. David Lee Roth ~ Jump (2006)
Joe Nichols ~ Baby Got Back (2017)

Garth Brooks ~ Hard Luck Woman / feat. KISS (1994)
Dolly Parton ~ My Love (1977)
Reba McEntire ~ If I Were A Boy (2011)
Conway Twitty ~ Slow Hand (1982)
Barbara Mandrell ~ If Lovin' You Is Wrong, I...o Be Right (1978)

Bill Withers & Kenny Rogers ~ Ain't No Sunshine (1972)

Wyclef Jean & Kenny Rogers ~ Pharoahe Monch Dub Plate (2000)

Candi Staton & Roy Clark ~ The Thrill Is Gone (1970)

Eddie Rabbitt & Donna Summer ~ Medley (1983)

Ringo Starr & Buck Owens ~ Act Naturally (1989)

Dolly Parton & Smokey Robinson ~ I Know You By Heart (1987)

Dolly Parton & Patti LaBelle ~ Up Above My Head / Shortnin' Bread (1987)

Kenny Rogers, Kim Carnes, James Ingram ~ What About Me? (1984)

Toby Keith & Sting ~ I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying (1997)

Bon Jovi & Jennifer Nettles ~ Who Says You Can’t Go Home (2005)

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
by Charles R. Townsend • Country Music Hall Of Fame

A bandleader, fiddler, singer, and songwriter, Bob Wills is the most famous exponent of the popular musical amalgam now known as western swing, which synthesized ragtime, traditional fiddling, New Orleans jazz, blues, Mexican songs, and big band swing.

James Robert Wills grew up in a musical family of fiddle players and in an area famous for African-American music that produced Scott Joplin, Victoria Spivey, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. From his family, young Jim Rob (as he was then called) learned to play frontier fiddle music; his father had defeated prominent country fiddler Eck Robertson in fiddle contests on more than one occasion. At age ten young Bob Wills played fiddle for his first ranch dance. From African-American neighbors and migrant workers, he learned blues and jazz, which enthralled him. In his late teens, he once rode fifty miles on horseback to see the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith.

Wills left the family farm at age seventeen and drifted from one job to another across Texas, working in construction and selling insurance in separate stops in Amarillo, preaching in Knox County, barbering in Roy, New Mexico, and in Turkey, Texas; laboring on several farms in various parts of the Lone Star State; and playing ranch house dances and traveling medicine shows whenever possible.

In November 1929, after joining forces with guitarist Herman Arnspiger, he made his first recordings for the Brunswick label, “Gulf Coast Blues” and “Wills Breakdown;” they were never issued and are now presumed lost. In 1930, singer Milton Brown and his guitar-playing brother Derwood joined Wills and Arnspiger. In due course they became the Aladdin Lamp Company’s “Aladdin Laddies” on WBAP-Fort Worth, and tenor banjoist Sleepy Johnson joined them for dances at the local Crystal Springs pavilion. The five-piece stringband produced the first glimmerings of what would be called western swing a decade later. In late 1930, Burrus Mill executive W. Lee O’Daniel hired the band to promote the mill’s Light Crust Flour on radio, first at tiny KFJZ and soon at WBAP, where the newly renamed Light Crust Doughboys became a favorite.

After the Browns left the band in September 1932 to form their own influential outfit, Wills soon exited the Doughboys as well. Taking with him Tommy Duncan (who had replaced Milton Brown as a Doughboy), Wills formed his own Playboys band and tried Waco for three months before heading to Oklahoma City in early 1934. After a short stint there, Wills and his five musicians arrived in Tulsa on February 9, upon being offered a daily program at KVOO on a trial basis. A daily 12:30 p.m. spot, sponsored first by Crazy Water Crystals and soon after by General Mills, launched Wills as the most popular act in the Southwest. During those years he added brass, reeds, and drums, and developed a band that by 1940 numbered sixteen members, among them such outstanding players as steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe, guitarist Eldon Shamblin, and fiddler Jesse Ashlock. The versatile band could play anything from a fiddle breakdown to a George Gershwin composition.

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys enjoyed their greatest success from 1935 to 1947 while recording for ARC/Vocalion/OKeh/Columbia. These recordings sold in the hundreds of thousands, and his “San Antonio Rose” probably sold in the millions. On the strength of his popularity on radio and recordings, Wills began making musical westerns in Hollywood in 1940.

A December 1942 induction into the Army broke up the Texas Playboys, but upon Wills’s discharge in 1943 he relocated to southern California and reformed the band. There he was more financially successful than at any other time in his career. Huge crowds at his dances and strong-selling recordings made him one of the highest-paid bandleaders in America.

After the war Wills decided to give up most of the brass and reeds in his band and rely more fiddles, guitars, steel guitars, and mandolins. This emphasis on strings helped him maintain a fairly strong following into the late 1940s, even after the age of the big bands was largely over. Unfortunately for Wills, however, his accomplished vocalist Tommy Duncan left the Texas Playboys in 1948 to form his own band. After leaving Columbia Records in 1947, Wills worked with a series of labels: MGM (1947-54), Decca (1955-57), Liberty (1960-63), Longhorn (1964), and Kapp (1965-69).

The late 1950s saw a resurging interest in western swing, with Wills returning to Tulsa. The band quickly expanded with the additions of a saxophone section and a new vocalist, Leon Rausch. When the band’s bookings concentrated in Las Vegas, Wills and the band moved there in late 1959. Tommy Duncan returned briefly (1960–62). By 1967 Wills had disbanded the Texas Playboys. Although he still toured and performed, he did so with house bands and one lone employee, vocalist Gene “Tag” Lambert, who doubled as his driver.

In October 1968 Wills was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, but the following May he suffered a stroke that marked the end of his performing days. In December 1973 he recorded his final album, For The Last Time (United Artists). Other strokes followed, but he held on until May 13, 1975, when pneumonia took his life.

Mexicali Rose (1935)
No Matter How She Done It (She's Just A Dirty Dame) (1936)
Snader Telescriptions performance (1951)
Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys (1944)
I'm A Ding Dong Daddy (From Dumas) (1937)

Empty Chair At The Christmas Table / White Cross On Okinawa (1945)
Twin Guitar Boogie (1974)

That's What I Like 'Bout The South (1974)
Sugar Baby (1959)
Cornball Rag (1955)

Sooner Or Later (You'll Fall) / Buffalo Twist (1964)
Bob Wills & Glen Campbell ~ San Antonio Rose (1964)
Mel Tillis & Bob Wills ~ Cotton Eyed Joe (1971)
Cadillac In Model "A" (1954)
That Hot Lick Fiddlin' Man (1949)

Tina Turner ~ Tina Turns The Country On! (1974)

Bayou Song
Help Me Make It Through The Night
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
If You Love Me (Let Me Know)
He Belongs To Me
Don’t Talk Now
Long Long Time
I’m Moving On
There’ll Always Be Music
The Love That Lights Our Way

Connie Smith

Once A Day (1964)

Tiny Blue Transistor Radio (1964)

L'amour N'excuse Pas (1966)

Connie Smith & Nat Stuckey ~ If God Is Dead (Who's That Living In My Soul) (1970)

Louisiana Man (1974)

So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad) (1976)

Ain't We Having Us A Good Time (1972)

I Can't Remember / If I Talk To Him (1965)

Don't Make Me Dream (1983)

Hold Me Back (1986)

Clinging To A Saving Hand (2012)