im only 30 and born and raised in Idaho, my daddy was born in NC, and I was raised on this, my sons 8 and 9 love this, and bluegrass, they love real music, and I agree, the new country is bull.
I used to watch Bob in person at The Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas about 1962. He did actually sing the blues quite well. Most of the time Tommy Duncan would sing but Bob was a multi talented guy. He was a great band leader.
Bob Wills grew up working for share crop cotton in Texas, his earliest background was his father was a musician and hanging around the other workers in the evening which is where he picked up his blues background.
Bob Wills was a unique individual, especially when you consider the time period that he played. A very different guy and very polished and dedicated to true musical art.
For some reason I find this song hauntingly wonderful. I find myself having to listen to this at least once a week. I love how the song has this old-time/blues sound and the movement and the singing of Mr. wills puts me in a trance.
He once heard that Jimmie Rodgers was in his hometown of Turkey TX; he rushed out of the barber shop where he worked, but he just missed him. Told that Rodgers was going to play in New Orleans, Wills hopped a train -- and made the 787-mile (one-way!) journey to see the concert!
That is just pure love and dedication in its rawest form-for one of the early legends of blues to have that effect on their country contemporary who is a legend in his own right upon the mantle of Hank, Ernest and Roy…
If you get a chance, watch Fats Domino play piano. He did the same thing! He put the microphone to his right, and looked at the audience and sang with a smile the whole time he was playing piano. Just great showmanship.
Me and my wife use to drive down to Oklahoma when Bob Wills was either in Tulsa or Oklahoma City to see him on stage, and he was a true gentleman. I sure miss him, his Texas Playboys and his great Western Swing Music.
my grandfather and grandmother were good frinds of Bobs they worked the door every weekend he played at wills point here in Sacramento.Bob gave my grandfather a hat that was custom made for Bob and a saddle that was custom made for him to my grandmother also.so my question is this,What would be the cause of 13 dislikes? must be ernest tubb fans...lol joke people dnt get upset.
very interesting. Im from Cleveland Ohio but moved to Amarillo about a year and a half ago and drive through turkey, Texas for my job and see "Bob wills is still King" was wondering what very old country was like. I can respect it for sure!
This is ABSOLUTELY Terrific footage! Thankx a bunch for sharing! Terrific! Terrific! WOW-The greatest Country Swing & Blues ever! KILLER, and elegant! FANTASTIC!!!
Bobby Koefer solo on this song shows mastery of tasteful steel guitar in my opinion. Top notch from one of the masters. The turnaround at 1:39 where he switches necks is pure genius. And he makes it look easy. I am going to learn that turnaround on 6 string never heard anybody use a like like that on the blues. Bill
Cotton Whittington - Great guitar player... and a brother LEFTY. He just takes a right handed guitar and play's it backwards like Albert King did. Most lefties switch the strings around. I always marvel at guys who play like Cotton. Listen to his effortless smooth performance... supporting the vocals... and just rockin' and groovin' along. Great.
Really good, and I'm most impressed by his timing and vocal expression on this piece. His voice is right on pitch, and he still had time to chime in with the fiddles. My late grandma born in '22 said as a teenager her and her brothers and sisters all loaded up in a car and went to see him at the Cain's Academy. I heard that the live show was incredible, and the dancing was hot! I would just like to have been a fly on the wall at that moment!
The blues are about feeling, more than actually suffering. None the less Bob Wills did have some hard times, working as a ranch hand and farmer. He saw some days. Not many folks could have sat in his shoes very long.
Bob Wills was the band leader,aranger, writer, and a genius when it came to selecting musicians . Tommy Duncan was the real singer in the band, not that did not stop Bob from doin an occasional vocal when the mood hit him.I just love his total disregard for time signatures & how the band just fell in there.
I think the one thing I get from Bob Wills, is that he did it for the love of music. If you look at all the touring, and all the gigs he played, yes at times he made a lot of money but at other times he had to have been losing money. He was a pure musician, whether you like his style or not, the guy did things the way he wanted to do them, and did it solely because he loved music. He went into a coma playing music. I just have an immense respect for Bob, what a talented, pure musician.
Duhhh... None the less times were tough folks were leaner and yes 'lil mitch Bob Wills grew up very poor in fact the family worked as migrant farm workers.
I agree with Mo Bandy; facial expressions are similar to Merle's. Merle chose his music heroes well! This is one of the factors that makes Merle Haggard the Best Country and Western Singer of all time!
Bob became famous as he was a truck driver for Burris Mills and Elevator in Saginaw Texas north of Ft. Worth. With his band mates convincing Pappy O'Daniels to Back them in a Radio show with advertising for the mills Products as the Light Crust Doughboys. Later creating the Texas Swing sound with the Texas Playboys.
Well. I have been rectified by the thought police. Bob Wills is perfect, and I'm a racist against my own people. I finally see the light. Lawdy lawdy, thank you for telling me how I should feel. I agree wholeheartedly.
A top drawer, first class recording! Thank you for posting. This epic blues was first recorded about 1930 by 'Mississippi Sheiks' - five years before Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys began recording. Many many great performers have done this great tune.Thanx again Mr. V.
It is blues. Western Swing = Blues. Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, Cliff Bruner, Milton Browne, Tommy Duncan, Johnny Lee Wills, Cotton Thompson and many many more are all blues singers and Western Swing is the blues part of oldtime country music.
+scott george I really love it and now at the age of 73, having been gone since 1954, friends from Okmulgee/classmates have found me on Facebook and we reminisce and enjoy all the memories. Okies never meet a stranger if they are from Oklahoma.
Thank you felixjazzage---you took the words right out of my mouth. I happen by to listen and enjoy country and western music, especially Bob Wills and his Playboys. Thanks to the Poster!
This performance--one of the Snader Telesciptions--was recorded in September, 1951, in Hollywood, California. Source: "San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills," by Charles Townsend.
Esta es una de mis canciones preferidas de todos los tiempos.Descubri a Bob Willis en The Last Picture Show de Peter Bogdanovich y ,pense que era Hank Williams, que sonaba como fondo en toda la pelicula ,desde ese dia Bob Willis y sus Texas Playboys acompañan mis dias junto a muchos otros pioneros de la musica popular americana ,que es un verdadero tesoro.Un saludo desde este rincon del mundo que es España.
I like a Dixie fiddle playin' it hot, where you think they might just saw right through the thing with the bow. Bob may have been born in Texas, but he's an Oklahoma cowboy all the way. This rendition of an old blues classic showcases his versatility and ability as a great band leader who's main instrument was a fiddle. He never claimed to be the best fiddler in the world, but his band was tight!
The left-handed guitar player on that old Epiphone is also very good. For that matter, Wills always had top-notch musicians, they must have been cutting edge back then - way before I was born.
I know Bob Wills did not write this song. And I know he did not record it first. But IMO His 1935 recording of this song is the best studio recorded version. This 1951 SNADER TELESCRIPTIONS live version from California is the greatest ANYWHERE.
As a trained musician I really love finding things like this, Its more of a jam. You can tell their timbre is kind of unrehearsed, a one take special performance!
These guys were playing multiple times a day by this point, they'd have shows in the afternoon and then one in the evening. You can't really get more talented than playing multiple times a day, they'd probably played that song 100 times by then, and everybody on stage is a 10 out of a 10 in their instrument.
He purposefully chases the melody just a bit. Maybe Willie does this because Bob did? This song also reminds me of Robert Johnson's Come into my Kitchen.
Wills recorded the song the Sheiks version on his first session around 1935 and kept recording it. Bob Always sang this song no matter what singer sang with the band. Ovr the roughly 40 years he recorded, most of the othere tunes that he learned from the Mississippi Sheiks like Corrina Corrina were songs Wills Sang, no matter who his singers were. The best recording is on the 1960 liberty recordings done in LA with Vickie Carr, of all people singing background.
The lead guitar player is "Cotton" Whitington. Bobby Koefer is playing steel. Bobby wound up in Wichita at the Hi-Ho club, where he played until he give up music and moved to Alaska. Note how "weird" he hold the bar. Best "harmonics" man in the biz.
Bob was considered a great fiddler, however he was known as a breakdown fiddler, not a jazz one. Listen to The Jobob Rag with Bob and Joe Holley fiddling...amazing piece. Joe Holley and Johnny Gimble were my favorite fiddlers; joe was fast and flying, but ol' Johnny could make it talk like no one else! It is really considered a sub-genre of jazz more than country...they played all the major genres of the time; blues, swing, jazz, some was even a precursor to rock!
Видеоклипы![Bob Wills' Original Texas Playboys - Today [Full Album]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uUPrVzNb8_g/mqdefault.jpg)
![Bob Wills' Original Texas Playboys - Today [Full Album]](/img/tr.png)
im only 30 and born and raised in Idaho, my daddy was born in NC, and I was raised on this, my sons 8 and 9 love this, and bluegrass, they love real music, and I agree, the new country is bull.
Bob Wills is STILL the king. Long live Bob!
I used to watch Bob in person at The Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas about 1962. He did actually sing the blues quite well. Most of the time Tommy Duncan would sing but Bob was a multi talented guy. He was a great band leader.
This is a Whiteman blues?
Bob Wills grew up working for share crop cotton in Texas, his earliest background was his father was a musician and hanging around the other workers in the evening which is where he picked up his blues background.
Bob Wills was a unique individual, especially when you consider the time period that he played. A very different guy and very polished and dedicated to true musical art.
For some reason I find this song hauntingly wonderful. I find myself having to listen to this at least once a week. I love how the song has this old-time/blues sound and the movement and the singing of Mr. wills puts me in a trance.
This is gold. Heres a fun-fact: Bob Wills once rode 50 miles on horseback to see Bessie Smith. He loved blues. Fact.
He once heard that Jimmie Rodgers was in his hometown of Turkey TX; he rushed out of the barber shop where he worked, but he just missed him. Told that Rodgers was going to play in New Orleans, Wills hopped a train -- and made the 787-mile (one-way!) journey to see the concert!
My grandfather told me that Bob wills first learned how to play instruments by playing the blues
That is just pure love and dedication in its rawest form-for one of the early legends of blues to have that effect on their country contemporary who is a legend in his own right upon the mantle of Hank, Ernest and Roy…
The era when soloists used to look at you and smile! 😌
If you get a chance, watch Fats Domino play piano. He did the same thing! He put the microphone to his right, and looked at the audience and sang with a smile the whole time he was playing piano. Just great showmanship.
i wish i could keep my eyes open as long as that steel player does during his solo, amazing!
Me and my wife use to drive down to Oklahoma when Bob Wills was either in Tulsa or Oklahoma City to see him on stage, and he was a true gentleman. I sure miss him, his Texas Playboys and his great Western Swing Music.
Those facial expressions are amazing! That’s an art in itself..it’s said that Merle Haggard got the idea for his facial expressions from Mr Wills
my grandfather and grandmother were good frinds of Bobs they worked the door every weekend he played at wills point here in Sacramento.Bob gave my grandfather a hat that was custom made for Bob and a saddle that was custom made for him to my grandmother also.so my question is this,What would be the cause of 13 dislikes? must be ernest tubb fans...lol joke people dnt get upset.
Bob Wills will always be the King in Texas
very interesting. Im from Cleveland Ohio but moved to Amarillo about a year and a half ago and drive through turkey, Texas for my job and see "Bob wills is still King" was wondering what very old country was like. I can respect it for sure!
Gosh Bob had such stage presence, such charisma
This is ABSOLUTELY Terrific footage! Thankx a bunch for sharing! Terrific! Terrific! WOW-The greatest Country Swing & Blues ever! KILLER, and elegant! FANTASTIC!!!
Bobby Koefer solo on this song shows mastery of tasteful steel guitar in my opinion. Top notch from one of the masters. The turnaround at 1:39 where he switches necks is pure genius. And he makes it look easy.
I am going to learn that turnaround on 6 string never heard anybody use a like like that on the blues.
Bill
It's so cool to see an old clip like this. These guys were so talented, it's so great they made this film!
Cotton Whittington - Great guitar player... and a brother LEFTY. He just takes a right handed guitar and play's it backwards like Albert King did. Most lefties switch the strings around. I always marvel at guys who play like Cotton. Listen to his effortless smooth performance... supporting the vocals... and just rockin' and groovin' along. Great.
Really good, and I'm most impressed by his timing and vocal expression on this piece. His voice is right on pitch, and he still had time to chime in with the fiddles. My late grandma born in '22 said as a teenager her and her brothers and sisters all loaded up in a car and went to see him at the Cain's Academy. I heard that the live show was incredible, and the dancing was hot! I would just like to have been a fly on the wall at that moment!
Google the song Saturday Night At Cains .
The blues are about feeling, more than actually suffering. None the less Bob Wills did have some hard times, working as a ranch hand and farmer. He saw some days. Not many folks could have sat in his shoes very long.
This is a great point, and notice that Bob chose a song that has optimism in it, like most of his music always did.
Steel guitar was absolutely awesome.
Classic Western swing. I could listen to this stuff all day.
What a wondeful performance and arrangement
A bunch of Texas good 'ol white boys paying tribute to a southern black man's blues song. God bless America!
Fantastic.
I love it.
I'm from Spain and this music is just fabulous!
I love western swing and.... Bob Wills, he's the great!!
From France
Bob Wills was the band leader,aranger, writer, and a genius when it came to selecting musicians . Tommy Duncan was the real singer in the band, not that did not stop Bob from doin an occasional vocal when the mood hit him.I just love his total disregard for time signatures & how the band just fell in there.
This is as good as it gets folks, I would do anything to see him live.
That non-pedal steel guitar solo is great!
I hear Bobby Koefer still plays, what a talent.
I think the one thing I get from Bob Wills, is that he did it for the love of music. If you look at all the touring, and all the gigs he played, yes at times he made a lot of money but at other times he had to have been losing money. He was a pure musician, whether you like his style or not, the guy did things the way he wanted to do them, and did it solely because he loved music. He went into a coma playing music. I just have an immense respect for Bob, what a talented, pure musician.
The best music in the world right there! They were and always will be the best.
Yes Bob Wills is still the king...were folks thinner then?? Yes indeed times were hard.
+sigmundfloyder not to mention the soil probably had alot more minerals. Everyone is malnourished these days its pretty sad.
Bob wills had no trouble paying for food he was one of the most successful musicians at the time maybe the most successful.
Duhhh... None the less times were tough folks were leaner and yes 'lil mitch Bob Wills grew up very poor in fact the family worked as migrant farm workers.
Al Swann
Bob Wills is the real deal and it didn't happen overnight...he worked hard and now he's a legend and still the King to this day.
It's 2023 and Bob Wills is still the King of Western Swing.
Thanks for putting this playlist together. Wonderful music!!!
I agree with Mo Bandy; facial expressions are similar to Merle's. Merle chose his music heroes well! This is one of the factors that makes Merle Haggard the Best Country and Western Singer of all time!
Bob Wills is STILL the king. Yes, yessssss.....
bob wills and his texas playboys.the men the performers the legands
with regards from one of his fans in australia robert
Bob became famous as he was a truck driver for Burris Mills and Elevator in Saginaw Texas north of Ft. Worth. With his band mates convincing Pappy O'Daniels to Back them in a Radio show with advertising for the mills Products as the Light Crust Doughboys. Later creating the Texas Swing sound with the Texas Playboys.
JAZZ BLUES COUNTRY! Love it still BOB RULES
That peddle steel is just luscious.
Sends a thrill up my back every time.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tommy!
Nothing puts me in a good mood like Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan.
Well. I have been rectified by the thought police. Bob Wills is perfect, and I'm a racist against my own people. I finally see the light. Lawdy lawdy, thank you for telling me how I should feel. I agree wholeheartedly.
Just awesome! Thanks for posting Bob Wills.
Slow, smooth, precise. Texas at its best. From your ole Tennessee partner.
A top drawer, first class recording! Thank you for posting. This epic blues was first recorded about 1930 by 'Mississippi Sheiks' - five years before Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys began recording. Many many great performers have done this great tune.Thanx again Mr. V.
It is blues. Western Swing = Blues. Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, Cliff Bruner, Milton Browne, Tommy Duncan, Johnny Lee Wills, Cotton Thompson and many many more are all blues singers and Western Swing is the blues part of oldtime country music.
Never one girl at time.... we always had seven...eight....nine!
This ain't country... this is the Blues.
But in either case, its some sweet, sweet music.
Grew up on this music while living in my hometown of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Love it.
Scott George I imagine it was quite changed from my generation. I lived the 40's and mid 50's there in Okmulgee.
+Joyce Godwin Grubbs Wow that must have been great times!
+scott george I really love it and now at the age of 73, having been gone since 1954, friends from Okmulgee/classmates have found me on Facebook and we reminisce and enjoy all the memories. Okies never meet a stranger if they are from Oklahoma.
Bobby Koefer awesome, A big smile and not even havin' to look at what he's doing
Thank you felixjazzage---you took the words right out of my mouth. I happen by to listen and enjoy country and western music, especially Bob Wills and his Playboys. Thanks to the Poster!
Love Bob & the boys! Fun to see this video.
Still the King! (And always will be.)
This performance--one of the Snader Telesciptions--was recorded in September, 1951, in Hollywood, California. Source: "San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills," by Charles Townsend.
Bob always admired Bessie Smith and it shows here.
Esta es una de mis canciones preferidas de todos los tiempos.Descubri a Bob Willis en The Last Picture Show de Peter Bogdanovich y ,pense que era Hank Williams, que sonaba como fondo en toda la pelicula ,desde ese dia Bob Willis y sus Texas Playboys acompañan mis dias junto a muchos otros pioneros de la musica popular americana ,que es un verdadero tesoro.Un saludo desde este rincon del mundo que es España.
This music just makes me feel good.
Long live the king
I agree, especially when he hits those harmonics at the end of his solo without looking down once!!! Awesome!!!
I like a Dixie fiddle playin' it hot, where you think they might just saw right through the thing with the bow. Bob may have been born in Texas, but he's an Oklahoma cowboy all the way. This rendition of an old blues classic showcases his versatility and ability as a great band leader who's main instrument was a fiddle. He never claimed to be the best fiddler in the world, but his band was tight!
bob wills is still the king!
this is just great!
ive watched it a 3 times through just now.
thanks for this to the poster and the band :)
The left-handed guitar player on that old Epiphone is also very good. For that matter, Wills always had top-notch musicians, they must have been cutting edge back then - way before I was born.
Hah! All the liberals I know have been listening to this for decades! Welcome to the party!
Yes the great Bobby Koeffer on steel here. These non pedal guys were far more adventurous and inventive. Wonderful.
I know Bob Wills did not write this song. And I know he did not record it first. But IMO His 1935 recording of this song is the best studio recorded version. This 1951 SNADER TELESCRIPTIONS live version from California is the greatest ANYWHERE.
Bob Wills' the new Chuck Norris, helll yeeeeah.
Meraviglia!!!!
Forgot to add - Bob Wills will be remembered long after you're gone.
I'd carry all their gear and cook for 'em if I could just hang around and learn a thing or twenty from the King of Texas.
So sweet, so real.
This is Great. I'm sending it to all my friends.
I love to see those good old b/w videos!
One of DJT45’s favorites.
As a trained musician I really love finding things like this, Its more of a jam. You can tell their timbre is kind of unrehearsed, a one take special performance!
Cream did this same song , years later.. I love this version .
These guys were playing multiple times a day by this point, they'd have shows in the afternoon and then one in the evening. You can't really get more talented than playing multiple times a day, they'd probably played that song 100 times by then, and everybody on stage is a 10 out of a 10 in their instrument.
He purposefully chases the melody just a bit. Maybe Willie does this because Bob did? This song also reminds me of Robert Johnson's Come into my Kitchen.
music country yeahhhh!!!!
Wills recorded the song the Sheiks version on his first session around 1935 and kept recording it. Bob Always sang this song no matter what singer sang with the band. Ovr the roughly 40 years he recorded, most of the othere tunes that he learned from the Mississippi Sheiks like Corrina Corrina were songs Wills Sang, no matter who his singers were.
The best recording is on the 1960 liberty recordings done in LA with Vickie Carr, of all people singing background.
Lubbock, TX. in the house!
VERY imaginative observation! kudos
bob wills is still the king
i heard this by flar ans scruggs some years ago and assumed it was a bluegrass song. this blewme away
Thems is sum perty funky cowboys!
Wow! That's the only footage I've ever seen of the much heralded Junior Barnard on upside down lefty guitar. Thanks for this terrific posting.
Excellent stuff!
une chanson pour dimanche bien remplis cool
Excellent/thanks.
Yeah, this is my music! Thanks for the clip!
The lead guitar player is "Cotton" Whitington. Bobby Koefer is playing steel. Bobby wound up in Wichita at the Hi-Ho club, where he played until he give up music and moved to Alaska. Note how "weird" he hold the bar. Best "harmonics" man in the biz.
Koefer's solo is straight up ridiculous , what a talent
Bob was considered a great fiddler, however he was known as a breakdown fiddler, not a jazz one. Listen to The Jobob Rag with Bob and Joe Holley fiddling...amazing piece. Joe Holley and Johnny Gimble were my favorite fiddlers; joe was fast and flying, but ol' Johnny could make it talk like no one else! It is really considered a sub-genre of jazz more than country...they played all the major genres of the time; blues, swing, jazz, some was even a precursor to rock!
Wonderful.
i heard the howling wolf version first. this one's great, too.
AHHHAAAW Take it away Bob,Take it away!!! Waylon is right ...He is still the King!
god bless, thank you
very cool piece of footage Rach...the lap steel solo was awesome..
Man, those steel guitar licks are so damn tasty...
@bilbocroft very true but it did pave the way for country, rock and roll, etc.
Bob & the Boys starred in some westerns (Tex Ritter) and in 1 his characters last name was Willis
Joe Holley also played his fiddle strung for right handers. He was his best soloist.
The king of western swing
country blues