Home > Bob Wills

He was born near Kosse, Texas and his father was a fiddle player who taught the young Wills to play the fiddle and the mandolin. In his 20s 'Bob' attended barber school, got married and moved to Turkey, Texas to be a barber. He regularly entered fiddle contests in West Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma and soon the fiddle had replaced the scissors in the young Wills' imagination and he headed to Fort Worth.

In Fort Worth Wills met Herman Arnspinger and formed The Wills Fiddle Band. In 1930 Milton Brown joined the group as lead vocalist and brought a sense of innovation and experimentation to the band now called the Light Crust Doughboys due to radio sponsorship by the makers of Light Crust Flower. Brown added twin fiddles, tenor banjo and slap bass and pointed the music in the direction of swing. The band split up though with Wills going on to form The Texas PlayboysThe Texas Playboys were a Western Swing band, long led by Bob Wills, and considered by many to be the definitive progenitor of that musical genre. External link ., with new singer Tommy Duncan, while Milton Brown formed his own band, Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies.

After relocating the band to WacoWaco is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 113,726. History Prior to its founding, Neil McLennan had settled in an area near the South Bosque River in 1838. Jacob De Cordova bought McLennan, then Oklahoma City, Wills eventually settled in Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa is the second-largest city in Oklahoma. As of the revised 2003 census report, the city had a total population of 387,807. It is the county seat of Tulsa County 6. History Tulsa began as a settlement of Creek Indians during the migration of tribes fr and began broadcasting noontime shows over the 50,000 watt KVOO radio station. By 1935Events January January 1 Italian colonies of Tripoli and Kyrenaika are joined together as Libya January 7 World War II: Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French foreign minister Pierre Laval conclude agreement in which each power undertakes not to oppo Wills had added horn and reed players to the Playboys and the band numbered 13. The addition of steel guitarThere are two instruments commonly called Steel Guitar the lap steel guitar and its descendant, the pedal steel guitar. String instruments. wiz Leon McAuliffe provided the final ingredient to the development of western swingWestern swing also known as Country Swing is dance music with an up-tempo beat and a decidedly Southwestern US regional flavor. It consists of an eclectic combination of country, cowboy, polka, and folk music, blended with a jazzy " swing", with a tip of. With its jazzFor other article subjects named Jazz see jazz (disambiguation). Jazz is a musical art form characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation. It has been called the first original art form to develop in th sophistication and blues influence, plus improvised scats and wisecrack commentary by Wills, the band became the first superstars of the genre. In 1940 "San Antonio Rose" sold a million records and became the signature song of The Texas Playboys.