“King of Western Swing.” Wills is often credited with creating this musical form, but it
seems more accurate to say that helped define the style, and he was its most famous
proponent. Born near Kosse, Texas, into a family with rich musical traditions on both
sides, it was expected that Wills would show some musical inclinations. Families of both
of his parents included some of the best fiddlers in that part of Texas, and young Wills
followed in their footsteps by also becoming a fiddler. He frequently performed for ranch
dances until he moved to Fort Worth in 1929, where he came in closer contact with urban
musical styles that played an important role in the music that he helped popularize. Wills’
first recordings, both unissued, were made that year; the two tides, “Gulf Coast Blues”
and “Wills Breakdown,” were a portent of things to come. They combined blues and
traditional fiddle music, a distinctive feature of Western Swing.
Eventually, Wills recorded more than 550 sides, most with his Texas Playboys,
organized in 1933. His music was a combination of traditional fiddle tunes, popular
music, African American blues, and small-band jazz. Wills knew the bulk of diis material
from records, radio broadcasts, and other commercial sources, although many of the
fiddle tunes were acquired from folk tradition. He resented the term “hillbilly,” and he
deliberately sought to distance himself from that tradition by providing a type of stringband music that would appeal to both rural and urban audiences while simultaneously
avoiding what he thought of as the hayseed connotations of country music. Wills did
accept the term “Western” as an accurate description of his music, and he was also
agreeable to the term “Western Swing,” first used in 1946 to describe the music of Spade
Cooley. Wills and the Texas Playboys emphasized dieir Western identity not only by
some of the tunes they played, but also by appearing in Western movies and by wearing
conservative Western-style clothing.
In 1964 healdi problems forced Wills to give up theTexas Playboys; later he fronted
other bands, and a special recording session in December 1973 reunited him with several
former Playboys. Unfortunately,Wills suffered a stroke and could not complete the
session; appropriately, the resulting album was tided For the Last Time. For his
contributions to music, Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and for
his popularization of the cowboy image he was voted into the National Cowboy Hall of
Fame as one of only two performers (the other was Gene Autry) to be honored by
induction into both institutions.
W.K.McNeil
References
Malone, Bill C. 1985. Country Music U.S.A. rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press.
——. 1993. Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of
Country Music. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Townsend, Charles R. 1975. Bob Wills. In Stars ofCountry Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny
Rodriguez, ed. Bill C.Malone and Judith McCulloh. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
——. 1976. San Antonio Rose: The Life andMusic of Bob Wills. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press.