BOB WILLS Bob Wills' Special (1940) Hot String Band Instrumental - 78 RPM Record

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys – Bob Wills' Special
Hot String Band Instrumental
Written by Bob Wills
78 RPM audio transfer from Bowness Arts' collection of vintage records

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys – Bob Wills' Special
Label: Columbia C150 (Canada)
Format: Shellac, 10", 78 RPM
Recorded: April 16, 1940
Released: 1940
Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country Instrumental
Other side of this record: Bob Wills' Special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95RGK5HwWHU

James Robert Wills was born March 6, 1905 in Kosse, Texas. He was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, and considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing. Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin who played steel guitar and bass. Oklahoma guitar player Eldon Shamblin joined the band in 1937 bringing jazzy influence and arrangements. The band played regularly on Tulsa, Oklahoma, radio station KVOO and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national popularity into the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "San Antonio Rose", "Smoke on the Water", "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step". Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded with several publishers and companies, including Vocalion, Okeh, Columbia, and MGM. In 1950, Wills had two top 10 hits, "Ida Red likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade. Throughout the 1950s, he struggled with poor health and tenuous finances. He continued to perform frequently despite a decline in the popularity of his earlier hit songs, and the growing popularity of rock and roll. Wills had a heart attack in 1962, and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Texas Playboys. Wills continued to perform solo. The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills in 1968 and the Texas State Legislature honored him for his contribution to American music. In 1972, Wills accepted a citation from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in Nashville. He recorded an album with fan Merle Haggard in 1973. Wills suffered two strokes that left him partially paralyzed, and unable to communicate. He was comatose the last two months of his life, and died in a Fort Worth nursing home on May 13, 1975, aged 70. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.

Thomas Elmer Duncan was born January 11, 1911 in Hillsboro, Texas. He was a
Western swing vocalist, songwriter and pianist. He died July 25, 1967 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was posthumously inducted into the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame in 1986.