Music

[Western]

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

The Tiffany Transcriptions

Image

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys championed Western swing for nearly 30 years, bringing their music by bus from one small town to the next, playing dances to pay their bills. Recording was not a priority. And when, during an early attempt to record an instrumental, an engineer objected to Wills’ high-pitched vocal interjections, Wills famously told his band: “Pack up! We’re going home.”

Of the recordings Wills—who died in 1975 at age 70—managed to lay down, The Tiffany Transcriptions remain the least-known and most-valued among serious fans. The 10 short discs (most barely 30 minutes long) were recorded for radio broadcast, rather than commercial release, in 1946 and ’47, and thus weren’t constrained by the limits of 78-RPM vinyl. That allowed the band to jam as it did for live performances, during which Wills created arrangements for his star soloists on the fly.

The Details

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
Five stars
Beyond the Weekly
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

By the mid-’40s, the Texas Playboys had spent more than a decade on the road, so even though a casual, good-time spirit pervades these 150 songs, the performances are relentlessly upbeat and tight. Compositionally, the Texas Playboys had more in common with Count Basie’s big band than, say, Hank Williams and his somewhat spare instrumentation. Along with fiddle, Wills utilized saxophone, trumpet, electric and steel guitar, upright acoustic bass (sometimes two basses), banjo, drums and as many as three singers in his lineups.

As much of America, especially the South, where Wills was most beloved, remained physically segregated during the 1940s, his music became creative miscegenation for his audiences, bringing them the blues and covers of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman jazz tunes. The Playboys’ material went on to influence generations of acts, from Willie Nelson to Asleep at the Wheel, and The Tiffany Transcriptions continues to make a strong case for Western swing as an essential yet neglected style of American music.

Share

Richard Abowitz

Get more Richard Abowitz

Previous Discussion:

Top of Story