Bob Wills

James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although Spade Cooley self-promoted the moniker "King of Western Swing" from 1942 to 1969).
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. 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", "New 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, frequently moving. In 1950, he 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, but continued to perform frequently despite the decline in popularity of his earlier music as rock and roll took over. Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys, although Wills continued to perform solo.
==Links to Peel==
Western Swing was a musical style which went out of fashion for a time, until a revival of interest in the 1970s by groups such as Peel favourites Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen led to reissues of the genre's original recordings, and thus to the rediscovery of its best-known band, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. 
Peel was enthusiastic about Bob Wills's material and would often play his music on his programmes. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys' song, 'Steel Guitar Stomp', was nominated by Peel as one of the songs for the Peelenium 1937.
==Shows Played==
;thumb|220x220px1973
*26 April 1973: Steel Guitar Rag
;1974
*19 February 1974: Little Girl Go And Ask Your Mama (v/a LP - Western Swing Historic Recordings) Old Timey
;1984
*10 April 1984: Steel Guitar Rag
*24 April 1984: The Twin Guitar Special
;1989
*13 December 1989: Little Girl, Go And Ask Your Mama
;1993
*26 June 1993: There's Going To Be A Party For The Old Folks
;1998
*03 November 1998: T For Texas (Blue Yodel No.1) (v/a album - American Yodelling 1911-1946) Trikont 
;1999
*10 August 1999: 'Steel Guitar Stomp' (Peelenium 1937)
==External Links==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
Category:Artists