Bob Wills

1. Right or Wrong

2. Time Changes Everything

3. Corrine, Corrina

4. Big Beaver

5. New San Antonio Rose

6. Take Me Back to Tulsa

7. Cherokee Maiden

8. Home in San Antone

9. Miss Molly

10. My Confession

11. Texas Playboy Rag

12. Roly Poly

13. Stay a Little Longer

14. My Window Faces the South

15. Fat Boy Rag

16. Three Guitar Special

17. Deep Water

18. Bubbles in My Beer

19. Blues for Dixie

20. South

Bob Wills,Bob Wills,St. Clair Records,Country,Country & Western,Leader,Pop,Songwriter,Traditional Country,Western Swing

Average customer rating: The Essential Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys Aahhh-hah, I've found the essential single disc collection of Wills' hottest sides Bob Wills will always be the king! As good a nintroduction as any ,to Bob Wills' Playboys' musi Bob Wills is Still the King

The Essential Bob Wills 1935-1947 Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Sony ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music Similar Items: The King of Western Swing: 25 Hits (1935-1945) The Essential Jimmie Rodgers For the Last Time Take Me Back to Tulsa Ride With Bob ASIN: B00000288D Release Date: 1992-10-13

Tracks:

1. Osage Stomp
2. Steel Guitar Rag
3. Right Or Wrong
4. Time Changes Everything
5. New San Antonio Rose
6. Bob Wills Special
7. Twin Guitar Special
8. Take Me Back To Tulsa
9. A Maiden's Prayer
10. Home In San Antone
11. Misss Molly
12. Texas Playboy Rag
13. Stay A Little Longer
14. Roly Poly
15. New Spanish Two Step
16. Sugar Moon
17. Brain Cloudy Blues
18. Fat Boy Rag
19. Deep Water
20. Bob Wills Boogie

Amazon.com essential recording

The Essential Bob Wills might more accurately be called The Essential Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. While Wills was certainly the charismatic stage presence, talent scout, songwriter, and Western-swing mastermind, the Playboys--one of the best bands to ever grace this earth--most shine on these early sides. From horn-heavy, big-band-inspired recordings such as "Osage Stomp" and "Right or Wrong" to fiddle-driven, closer-to-country classics such as "Take Me Back to Tulsa" and "Stay a Little Longer," it was primarily the incomparable playing of pianist Al Stricklin, steel legend Leon McAuliffe, and the other Playboys, not to mention the smoother-than-smooth vocals of the great Tommy Duncan, that made this band the Southwest's flagship two-steppin' outfit and that make these 20 tracks truly "essential." --David Cantwell

Customer Reviews:

The Essential Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys.......2006-07-20

If you really, really like Texas swing, this is a must-have CD. When listening, I can just imagine driving down some long, straight, lonesome highway on a hot Texas summer night in my '39 Ford (which I owned once) listening to these songs on the scratchy radio (which was in the Ford I owned). The songs are repetitous, but OH SO SWEET. I wish there could have been some historical documentation with the CD, eg some bio's of the artists, a bit of concert trivia, etc.

Aahhh-hah, I've found the essential single disc collection of Wills' hottest sides.......2006-03-16

This is certianly the best priced, easiest to find, and best single disc sampler of Wills' early years. The period covered here is his best 36-47, when western swing was fresh and new. Wills creatively blends hillbilly blues, and hot jazz, for some sizzling swing music. Exellent piano and steel guitar playing throughout. The musicianship is high, and this band is really tight, I mean Flether Henderson tight! As far as the music being fun goes, you get to hear Bob Wills yell in a high pitched voice at least three times in every song "ahhh-hahhh", which is half the fun of hearing a Bob Wills album. This cd features Wills' small swing combos, and several examples of his full big band. Exellent music that is still exciting today as it was in 1936!

Bob Wills will always be the king!.......2005-02-20

I am 20 y ears of age and I have always been a true Bob Wills fan! This collection brings together all his early hits but his best work in my opinoin was when he was with Columbia from 1935-1947. I have all of them on the comprehensive 11 CD box set entitled San Antonio Rose which features everyone of his Columbia recordings in cronological order! It is fantastic! Highly recommended for true Bob Wills and western swing fans! For starters only I recommend this CD for it contains San Antonio Rose and all his early hits. Ah-haa!!!

As good a nintroduction as any ,to Bob Wills' Playboys' musi.......2004-08-28

This is a good place to start when discovering the music of Bob Wilsl and his playboys. Fine jazz influenced western swing. This is where swinging jazz meets hillbilly bop! Exciting and pioneering music. Also check out Milton Brown and Wills' other brotther Billy Jack Wills for more fun western swing...

Bob Wills is Still the King.......2004-03-12

This is a collection of recordings by the Texas Playboys band from around 1936 until around 1947, the years they recorded for Columbia and its various sub brands like Okeh.

As such it shows the enormous diversity of the playboys over the years. Until around 1945, Wills fronted what was really two bands. One was a Western Swing combo includings fiddles and guitars, steel and one or two horns and rhythm. The other was a full scale big band with reed and brass section along with the Western Swing instruments. The big band played originals and stock arrangements written for big bands for big band top hits like In the Mood.

Particularly during the mid 1930s, some Wills recordings were everything in between the full swing band and just fiddle and rhythm accompaniment. While he was quite faithful as long he recorded to the old ranch dance sounds he had grown up playing with his dad, Wills welcomed any kind of inovative music by his players. In the 1940s the band featured the Charlie Christian influenced guitar solos of Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill who went on to work for Spade Cooley and the near rock style hot metal blues guitar solos of Lester Bernard Junior. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Wills would use Tiny Moore and Johnny Gimble both on electric mandolin and fiddle who would take bebop influenced solos even though both were also great traditional fiddlers (In fact, it is Johnny Gimble, not Bob Wills, who is the main fiddle player on their great 1950s hit on the traditional Texas fiddle tune, "Faded Love" )

After WWII Wills dropped the big band and had a western swing combo with usually one horn either a trumpet or a sax, and rarely he had fiddler Louis Tierney double on sax along with the trumpet. The key instruments in the combo were usually a steel guitar, electric mandolin, and electric guitar section plus two or three fiddles, along with a rhythm section, although for a while in the 1950s, Wills had both an old Hawaiian Steel guitar AND one of the new pedal steels.

The music here is great, terrific and wonderful. The playboys had fun. Current ideas about genre, especially sterotypes about country music have to be dropped. Wills's band did not consider themselves as part of country music, but as part of pop music and Jazz. They never had much to do with the Southeastern "Country Music" operation that was growing up around Nasheville. In fact in 1945 when the Playboys were the biggest grossing act in all popular music (bigger than Sinatra or Glenn Miller or Bing Crosby who actually had a big hit on Wills' San Antionio Rose and who performed withthe Playboys during WWII bond drives!) they were finally invited on the Grand Ole Opry. They almost left without performing when the Opry explained it didnt allow drums and horns, and Wills said he would leave if he had to do that.

The Playbou image was originally associated with kind of "collegiate" a 1920's Jazz age image if you look at the photographs of the original Playboys in their "college" sweaters. They adopted the cowboy image only in the late 1930s when they began to perform in Western pictures.

As a Black performer of blues among other things, I love Tommy Duncan's Blues singing and do several of his songs just as he does them, and get a great response from audiences when I do.

The big problem is that Columbia keeps putting out these one records with some, but not all of the Wills stuff they recorded. If you buy these you end up with three or four recordings of the same tune. Wills is so good, that you will find you need it all. Seriously consider getting a bigger set, because you will need it all.

As has been said this is just the Columbia stuff from 1936-1947. MGM put out a terrific collection of ALL THEIR recordings from 1947 to about 1953 called Boot Heel Drag. Also there are about 10 CDs of the tiffany transcriptions that Rounder has out. These were non commercial recordings the band made to be sold to radio stations along with commercials for a furniture company. They are all between around 1945 and 1949 and are looser, hotter, more informal and include more pop and jazz material than what was issued by Columbia or MGM.

Finally there is For the Last Time, the only reunion done of the old band with Bob. Bob fell into a comma that he never recovered from during the session and there was even more emotion in the playing on that Album.

Bob Will's shouting and hollering is part of the act. As has been said it comes out of the old minstrel shows, but also is much like what you would have heard from a lot of the black jazz men of the 1920s especially Louis Armstrong. It gave a special push to his soloists. Also at a time when most band leaders had no regard for the career of band members, Wills' calls of the names of his performers made them stars in their own right and glorified the instrumental excellence of their solos.

In fact, Bob's call to Leon McAuliffe "take it away leon" became a stock phrase in the whole US population in the 1940s and 1950s.

Bob Wills is still the King

Average customer rating: amazing collection "What A Great Deal ! "Come in, Tommy..." HERE THEY ALL COME! Red Hot Jazz Cowboy blues band!

Take Me Back to Tulsa Bob Wills Manufacturer: Proper UK Boxed Sets ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music General | Country | Box Sets | Stores | Music General | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Country | Imports | Stores | Music Bargain Box Sets | Country General | Country | Today's Deals in Music | Formats | Music All Bargain Titles | Country General | Country | Today's Deals in Music | Formats | Music Similar Items: Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys: The Golden Years of Western Swing Recordings 1927-1933 For the Last Time The King of Western Swing: 25 Hits (1935-1945) Ride With Bob ASIN: B00005TO15 Release Date: 2001-12-03

Tracks:

1. Nancy Jane - Fort Worth Doughboys
2. Sunbonnet Sue - Fort Worth Doughboys
3. Osage Stomp
4. Get With It
5. Spanish Two Step
6. Maiden's Prayer
7. I Ain't Got Nobody
8. Who Walks in When I Walk Out
9. Oklahoma Rag
10. Smith's Reel
11. Weary of the Same Ol' Stuff
12. No Matter How She Done It
13. Bluin' the Blues
14. Red Hot Gal of Mine
15. Steel Guitar Rag
16. What's the Matter With the Mill?
17. Sugar Blues
18. Basin Street Blues
19. Too Busy
20. Fan It
21. There's No Disappointment in Heaven
22. Swing Blues No. 1
23. Playboy Stomp
24. T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1)
25. Never No More Hard Times Blues
26. Oozlin' Daddy Blues

Tracks:

1. Black Rider
2. Pray for the Lights to Go Out
3. San Antonio Rose
4. Carolina in the Morning
5. Silver Bells (That Ring in the Night)
6. Beaumont Rag
7. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
8. Whoa Baby
9. I Wonder If You Feel the Way I Do
10. My Window Faces the South
11. That's What I Like About the South
12. Waltz You Saved for Me
13. Prosperity Special
14. Don't Let the Deal Go Down
15. You're Okay
16. Lone Star Rag
17. Corrine, Corrina
18. Bob Wills Special
19. Time Changes Everything
20. Big Beaver
21. New San Antonio Rose
22. I Knew the Moment I Lost You
23. Twin Guitar Special
24. Take Me Back to Tulsa
25. Takin' It Home
26. Please Don't Leave Me
27. Cherokee Maiden
28. Dusty Skies
29. My Life's Been a Pleasure

Tracks:

1. We Might as Well Forget It
2. Home in San Antone
3. Liberty
4. Miss Molly
5. You're from Texas
6. Goodbye Liza Jane
7. My Confession
8. Texas Playboy Rag
9. Roly Poly
10. Stay a Little Longer
11. Just a Plain Old Country Boy
12. New Spanish Two-Step
13. I'm Feelin' Bad
14. Cotton Eyed Joe
15. Brain Cloudy Blues
16. Bob Wills Boogie
17. Fat Boy Rag
18. Good Man Is Hard to Find
19. Little Bit of Boogie
20. Along the Navajo Trail
21. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
22. Betcha My Heart
23. Chinatown
24. Dinah
25. Frankie Jean
26. Hawaiian War Chant

Tracks:

1. I'm a Ding Dong Daddy
2. Milk Cow Blues
3. My Gal Sal
4. Red River Valley
5. Sugar Moon
6. Sweet Jennie Lee
7. Girl I Left Behind Me
8. At the Woodchopper's Ball
9. Blues for Dixie
10. Bubbles in My Beer
11. Can't Get Enough of Texas
12. Cotton Patch Blues
13. Cowboy Stomp
14. Crazy Rhythm
15. Deep Water
16. Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age
17. Keeper of My Heart
18. Little Cowboy Lament
19. Thorn in My Heart
20. Ida Red Likes to Boogie
21. Boot Heel Drag
22. Faded Love
23. I Laugh When I Think How I Cried Over You
24. I'll Be Lucky Someday
25. I Didn't Realise
26. Rock-A-Bye Baby Blues
27. Jolie Blon Likes the Boogie
28. End of the Line

Album Description

UK budget-price box-set featuring the pioneer of western swing, he played blues, rags, stomps, ballads and jazz in a style that became much imitated. 119 tracks and including a 52 page illustrated booklet. Four standard jewel cases housed in a slipcase. 2001.

Album Details

Compilation featuring 109 Tracks from the King of Western Swing. Includes Every Important Track Recordedbetween the Years 1932 and 1950 as Well as a 52 Page Booklet with a Biography, Session Details and Rarephotos.

Customer Reviews:

amazing collection.......2007-06-01

An incredible bargain ... the only surprise is that it doesn't have "Right or Wrong," which is on the one-disc "Essential" collection.

"What A Great Deal !.......2006-06-29

I own 2 other Bob Wills box sets - Anthology 1935 - 1973, which is a 2 CD set with a lot of good music on it, mostly old. I also have the box set "Encore" that has all Bob's newer stuff from the early 60's (when Tommy Duncan came back) to his recordings in the early 70's before his death (at this time in his career his band cosisted of a lot less members and no horns)both these sets are "pretty" good. But this set from Proper Records "Take me back to Tulsa" is one of the Best deals on the internet today. I paid about 18 bucks for this set "Brand New" and it has four CD's that are loaded with tons of great music going all the way back to when Bob was still playing with Milton Brown (Proper's box set "Milton Brown and his Brownies" is also pretty darn good,but it doesn't have that Wills Western Flair). Bottom line if you are a fan of Western Swing and can't afford at this time to put out about $700.00 for the two Outstanding Bear Family box sets then go for this one, over 100 Great songs you won't be disappointed....the price is right too! "Enjoy" Joe Kopeck - Parkville , MD.

"Come in, Tommy...".......2006-01-06

This boxed set is amazing for the sheer volume of wonderful music it proffers at a fraction of what one would expect to pay for it. Concentrating on the early years, it presents Bob Wills at the dawn of his recording career and continues through the height of his creativity. This is the cream of early Bob Wills, and contains about 60% of his very best material (I am long of the opinion that Bob Wills never made a bad record in his life, and he continued to be productive through his so-called "lean years" of the 1950's, 1960's and beyond). But these tracks are the classics that most fans cherish above all.

Tommy Duncan, Wills' favorite featured vocalist, appears here on many sides, including Time Changes Everything (my personal Bob Wills favorite) and many others. Besides the early Columbia sides, there are examples of his Decca years and other smaller labels. A few of my own favorites include My Little Cherokee Maiden (close runner-up to Time Changes Everything as my favorite Bob Wills record) Sunbonnet Sue (recorded with Milton Brown and His Brownies before Bob formed the Playboys) Maiden's Prayer, Steel Guitar Rag, Basin Street Blues, San Antonio Rose, Silver Bells, Lone Star Rag (an overlooked masterpiece, and one of the catchiest instrumental tunes you've ever heard), Take Me Back To Tulsa, Miss Molly, My Confession, Roly Poly, Hawaiian War Chant, Sugar Moon, Bubbles In My Beer, Deep Water, Faded Love (which Bob wrote and Patsy Cline had a monster hit with) and I Laugh When I Think How I Cried Over You (what a great title!).

For anyone who doesn't know, Bob Wills was a fiddle player who played his first professional gig as a young boy, substituting for his father at a barn dance. Although he grew up around Western music, the Wills family lived in a poor area where there were many black families, and very early he was exposed to and grew to love the Blues and other forms of traditional African-American music. Legend has it that he once rode fifty miles on horseback to attend a Bessie Smith recital, and was the only white person in the audience. He was one of the founding members of Milton Brown and His Brownies, the band credited with creating the style of music now known as Western Swing. When he started his own band, the Texas Playboys, he took a cue from Count Basie and included Brass, Horns and rhythm instruments, and if he couldn't claim to actually invent Western Swing, he certainly perfected it. In the 1940's he was one of the highest paid bandleaders in the US.

Bob was most famous for his "calls" or "hollers". When the band got hot, he would frequently holler "Ahhhhh-hahhhh" or prod them along with such exclamations as "Take it away, Leon" or "Here's that old piano pounder". Or, if the band was playing below his expectations, he would shout, "Johnny in key, please" or virtually anything else that came into his mind.

For many years during the height of his popularity, Bob and his music were rejected by the orthodox country music establishment for being too "jazzy" and ignored by the jazz world for being too "hillbilly". Western Swing is a blend of jazz and western music - it is primarily dance music, with a strong emphasis on vocals (like country), but it also includes jazz instruments like saxophone and trumpets. What makes it most unique are instruments that are traditionally associated with country music (like fiddles and steel guitars), being employed in a "swing" or jazz fashion. Any performance by Bob Wills Texas Playboys incorporates spotlight solos, improvisation and other musical trademarks generally associated with jazz. In other words, his band and his music are totally unique.

Fortunately, there was a revival of interest in Bob Wills and his music which started in the 1960's and continues to this day. After his death in 1974, there was an explosion of new Western Swing bands, with young admirers anxious to copy the Bob Wills sound and keep Western Swing alive. Even country music has finally paid him his due, for today Bob Wills is proudly embraced and revered in country circles as a pioneer and a true original. He is now acknowledged as one of the first to incorporate African American rhythm and Jazz into country music, and his influence has been acknowledged by such diverse artists as Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and even Elvis Costello.

If you are not familiar with Bob Wills, you can't go wrong with this set as an introduction, especially at this price.

HERE THEY ALL COME!.......2005-09-13

Some of these songs aren't on any of the other CD's and if they are, they're different versions. A couple you will want to hear if you haven't already are "Fan It" and "Pray for the Lights To Go Out"- MAN, ARE THOSE OLD BUT GOOD!! "Cowboy Stomp" is another one I hadn't heard before that's in this collection. Anybody who loves Bob Wills should have this, it is worth every penny.

Red Hot Jazz Cowboy blues band!.......2005-01-13

Mix two parts twenties jazz, one part blues, one part swing, two parts honky tonk, and one part crooning music and what do you have? Bob Wills and His Texas Playboy Band! I was turned on to this band by their recording of "Too Busy," which sounds like a cross between early fifties rock and roll and dixieland jazz. These guys were hot! Bob Wills and his band were a perfect example of a group of musicians who played live several hours a day, perfecting their craft - not the talentless celebrities of today who rely on tape loops and beat machines. This set is an unbelievable value. You get four cds for 22$! And this isn't filler. Each cd has songs that you will want to download into your ipod. Excellent!

Average customer rating: Great Gift Just One Great Time! Ten years in the evolution of western swing . . . Columbia hang your head in Shame Best one-volume CD available

The King of Western Swing: 25 Hits (1935-1945) Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Asv Living Era ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music General | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Traditional Country | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Western Swing | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: The Essential Bob Wills 1935-1947 Take Me Back to Tulsa For the Last Time Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys: The Golden Years of Western Swing Ride With Bob ASIN: B0000063CZ Release Date: 1998-04-21

Tracks:

1. New San Antonio Rose
2. Osage Stomp
3. Never No More Hard Times - Blues
4. Steel Guitar Rag
5. Sugar Blues
6. Fan It
7. Right Or Wrong
8. Whoa Baby
9. That's What I Like About The South
10. Lone Star Rag
11. Corrine, Corrina
12. Bob Wills Special
13. Time Changes Everything
14. Big Beaver
15. Take Me Back To Tulsa
16. Dusty Skies
17. We Might As Well Forget It
18. Home In San Antone
19. You're From Texas
20. Goodbye, Liza Jane
21. Texas Playboy Rag
22. Roly Poly
23. Stay A Little Longer
24. New Spanish Two-Step
25. I'm Feelin' Bad

Customer Reviews:

Great Gift.......2007-01-09

I bought this as a gift for my parents and they love it.

Just One Great Time!.......2006-02-27

I don't know much about the history of this group, but musicians I really enjoy think the world of them, so I thought it would be fun to give a listen.

Imagine you are someone struggling to eke out a living in the midst of the Great Depression. So you got a couple of bucks and try for a little diversion in a dusty roadhouse in the southern middle of the country. To your surprise and delight you are entertained by a largish group of really good musicians playing an unfamiliar mix of big band, country and blues.

Some of the earliest amplified music and nice pedal steel guitar work can be heard in this collection. A sign of the times of the music can be glimpsed in lyrics like: "Ain't got no blues, got chickens out in my yard..."

I like that this collection is in mono, and that the sound quality doesn't come close to current standards. It's damn fine music, presented as it was at the time. Take a chance.

Ten years in the evolution of western swing . . ........2005-01-03

Western swing fans who know its full-fledged big-band sound of the 1940s will enjoy tracing its emergence from country jazz and blues and its migration from Texas to California in this terrific collection of early recordings by Bob Wills. The CD kicks off with the band's biggest western swing hit, "New San Antonio Rose" and then jumps back to their first recording, "Osage Stomp" (a rough and ready tune that's part barn dance and part Dixieland). The following six songs, all recorded in 1936, branch out from this into delta blues and rags, all with a country flavor, Wills' characteristic encouragements to the band and trademark "Ah-haaa."

The swing-band sound predominates starting with the 1938 recordings ("Whoa Baby," track 8) at a time when the band grew to 18 members. There follow some great standards, "Corrine, Corrina" (1940), "Take Me Back to Tulsa" (1941), "You're From Texas" (1942), and "Stay a Little Longer" (1945). Among the songs are vocals by young Tommy Duncan (born 1911) and younger Leon McAuliffe (born 1917), whose clear, mellow voices ring bright and sweetly smooth. Many songs are also graced by the sound of McAuliffe's wonderful steel guitar.

A short booklet with this CD recounts the career of Bob Wills and his band. For each of the 25 tracks, the notes identify the location and date of recording (tracks 1-15 in Texas; tracks 16-25 in Hollywood). With 70 minutes of music, this CD is a great value.

Columbia hang your head in Shame.......2003-12-12

Columbia and its leasees have been reissuing recordings Bob Wills did with them in various aggregations since the mid 1970s when they let loose the original Bob Wills Anthology. Since then they have been putting out various combinations of the stuff from their years (1936-1946)in a way that if you went with them and bought this record or one of its peers, you would end up having three or four copies of some of the key recordings just to have all the best stuff. Yet, the music is worth it.

Of course you can go upscale and get the Bear Family Box and other compilations.

This CD has some great stuff that isn't on the anthology and some of the other collections as well as stuff that isn't. Most of the good stuff on this record is from the pre-WWII band.

During the war the Playboys went through a lot of changes. Tommy Duncan joined the navy the day after war started. Wills himself was drafted. Wills showed up for the Army with his chauffer, his Cadillac limousine, and fretted about being woken up before 9 a.m. or doing anything that would roughen his fiddle playing hands! Wills was allowed to quit the army--something almost no one else was allowed to do during WWII--after he agreed to raise a lot of money for War bonds. Leon McAuliffe who had learned to fly working for Wills who had his own plane to fly the Playboys around in, became a flight instructor for the military. Etc. Etc.

During the War itself Wills fronted the largest and according to those who heard it--it was never recorded due to the various recordinjg bands and vinyl shortages during the war--most beautiful big band aggregation he ever had. However, the band tended to shift to a group dominated by fiddles, and a trio with steel guitar, guitars, and tiny moore and later Johnny Gimble's electric mandolin with only one horn.

This is the band you hear on the Tiffany transcriptioons which were all made in 1946 and 1947.

I would also not dismiss the MGM years that followed the Columbia contract from the late 1940s into the mid 1950s. MGM has come out with a complete collection of Wills in those years, entitled The Boot Hill Drag, which has some of the hottest swingingest music ever made. And the stuff Wills recorded in the very late 1950s and early 1960s for Liberty with the return of Tommy Duncan and Joe Holley were as good as anything recorded in the 1930s or 1940s though it had a cleaner, jazzier, sound and even featured Vicki Carr singing backup on some numbers. If you like fiddle choirs, you will like some of the Liberty Tunes where Wills rounded out his own fiddle sections with a violist out of the Lawrence Welch Orchestra!

To be sure, if you don't have any Bob Wills Music this is as good as any set to start with. The music is good enough for you to chase after it. This is Wills from 36 to 46 basically. Then you just get all the rest. The man kept making music until 1973. You really need it all!

Best one-volume CD available.......2002-01-26

Leave it to the British to offer the best one-stop shopping for Bob Wills fans. Unless you have the money to buy all 9+ CDs in the Tiffany Transcriptions...this is it.

Average customer rating: Country Swing Texas Swing Well worth it with a lot more than What Amazon tells You First of two great tributes to the king of western swing Bob Wills is still the King!

Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys All the Voice Manufacturer: Turnip The Music Group ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Compilations | Country | Styles | Music Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music Similar Items: Ride With Bob Swing Time Asleep at the Wheel - 20 Greatest Hits For the Last Time Take Me Back to Tulsa ASIN: B000002URC Release Date: 1996-01-30

Tracks:

1. Red Wing (Instrumental) - Chet Atkins
2. Big Balls In Cowtown - George Strait
3. Yearning (Just For You) - Vince Gill
4. Bring It On Down To My House - Ray Benson
5. Deep Water - Garth Brooks
6. Blues For Dixie - Lyle Lovett
7. Billy Dale - Dolly Parton
8. Across The Alley From The Alamo - Johnny Rodriguez
9. Old Fashioned Love - Suzy Bogguss
10. Ida Red - Huey Lewis
11. Misery - Marty Stuart
12. I Wonder If You Feel The Way I Do - Merle Haggard
13. Hubbin' It - Huey Lewis
14. Corine, Corina - Brooks & Dunn
15. Still Water Runs The Deepest - Willie Nelson
16. All Night Long - Leon Rausch
17. Got A Letter From My Kid Today - Ray Benson
18. Dusty Skies - Riders In The Sky

Amazon.com

Ray Benson's Asleep At The Wheel deserve admiration for keeping alive the sounds of western swing, but with a rhythm section that's usually straight-up-and-down stiff, The Wheel's recordings mainly just leave you craving their inspirations. The 18-song Tribute overcomes this problem by loading up on singers who do their best to swing even when the band doesn't. George Strait, doing "Big Balls In Cowtown," is a natural, of course, as are the offerings from Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett and Dolly Parton. Even Garth Brooks' go at "Deep Water," who mimics Strait to perfection here, is a pleasant surprise. --David Cantwell

Customer Reviews:

Country Swing.......2006-03-10

This is a great CD. The selections are awesome. Would recommend it to anyone who enjoys country/country swing.

Texas Swing.......2005-10-11

Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys was definitely toe tapping music. Just a wonder rendition of songs to put you in a good mood

Well worth it with a lot more than What Amazon tells You.......2004-03-16

Ray Benson and various aggregations of Asleep at the Wheel have been making records for almost 30 years now. The truth is that there are a bunch of standards of Western Swing that just have to be done and done again. Recently he has tried to get the variety in by doing live albums, and so-called tribute albums like this one, a tribute to Bob Wills. They are a nice excuse to do covers of Bob Wills Songs that Asleep at the Wheel has already recorded.

This works well because a lot of the people he uses on the record are veterans of the Western Swing revival Merle Haggard and Ray launched in the 1970s from different directions, although you might not know it now. It works because the band sounds looser, a bit wilder, and not as concerned with perfection and style as it does on their studio records, which, by the way I think are terrific.

Of course the Amazon listing here is incorrect. All of these tunes have guests. Red Wing for example has the one the only, the Tyler Rose, the greatest living Western Swing musician, the guy that Bob Wills had play Faded Love rather than himself, Johnnie Gimble on both fiddle and Mandolin. Ray gets by the problem of the racial insensitivity of "Across the Alley from the Alamo" by having Johnny Rodriguez sing it, and Susie Bogus does a great job on the early Wills Tune "Old Fashioned Love."

Marty Stuart has always been a great musician, starting out playing in Lester Flatt's band when he was 15, and being an ace on both guitar and mandolin. Besides some good picking on some of the other tunes, he does a great version of the great tune Misery, a tune from the days of the Wills/Duncan reunion in the late 1950s and early 1960s that should be better known.

Riders in the Sky join in with the band to do a great harmony on one of Cindy Walker's masterpiece "Dusty Sky." This song is so much more powerful about the dust bowl and the farm crisis of the thirties than anything that Woody Guthrie wrote. They say Tommy Duncan who had been destroyed as a farmer by the dust bowl droughts, broke down in tears when they recorded it. On the original recording you can hear Bob Wills trying to keep him going.

Haggard, well Haggard recorded the same tune he sings on this record with Bob Wills. Can't get better than that!

Even Huey Lewis gives us a little taste of where he was in the 1970s with a great version of Will's Hubbin' It!

The only thing I don't like here is Brooks and Dunn's Corrina Corrina. It has nothing to do with Western Swing, just your country rock rendition that sounds like a thousand other top 40 country recordings, although done with flavor and a solid dance beat.

Asleep at the Wheel have never been reconstructionists. They have never tried to sound like the Texas Playboys, even in the early days when they were able to include former Texas Playboys like Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore, and others on their records. They always have tried to have a hot, jamming sound. So, they are the ideal band for this kind of tribute.
They are really, really jamming and jamming hard drawing in the talents of other pickers and singers and making this a real event.

First of two great tributes to the king of western swing.......2003-09-06

Ray Benson and the other members of Asleep at the Wheel had never made any secret of the fact that Bob Wills was their biggest influence, but they emphasized the point by recording two tribute albums in the nineties devoted entirely to his music, of which this is the first. Both albums featured a star-studded line-up of guests.

Big names featured here include George Strait (Big ball's in Cowtown), Vince Gill (Yearning just for you), Garth Brooks (Deep water), Dolly Parton (Billy Dale), Merle Haggard (I wonder if you feel the way I do), Huey Lewis (Holding it), Corrine Corrina (Brooks and Dunn) and Willie Nelson (Still waters run the deepest). Huey and Willie also feature on Ida Red. All of their performances are superb, although my favorite track here is Old-fashioned love (Suzy Bogguss).

All the tracks here are brilliant. Your favorites may be different from mine, but if you like real country music that swings, Texas style, this is for you.

Bob Wills is still the King!.......2002-12-17

I picked this disc up in a Wal- Mart in Chester,S.C. on the name recognition of Bob & A@TW. I was blown a then,now and every time I spin cd! I didn't notice the big country stars,except Willie Nelson. I quit listening to radio in the early 80's as that wasn't REAL COUNTRY MUSIC! This tribute explodes with the real deal. I love every song on it, especially the intro, Rolly Polly&Sad Party. Friends will ask if I've heard the latest NEW THING? To which I reply,"Bob Wills has over 60 songs and I've only heard about twenty of 'em! Who cares about the weak new stuff with these classics around! Shawn

Average customer rating: Red Steagall CD Two classic western albums Red's the Best! Best of Red Steagall good news and not-quite-good news

Lone Star Beer & Bob Wills Music/For All Our Cowboy Friends Red Steagall Manufacturer: Koch Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Cowboy | Country | Styles | Music General | Country | Styles | Music Nashville Sound | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Traditional Country | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: Wagon Tracks Born to This Land The Wind the Wire and the Rail Love of the West Dear Mama, I'm a Cowboy ASIN: B00004785W Release Date: 2000-03-14

Tracks:

1. Lone Star Beer And Bob Wills Music
2. My First Night Without You
3. Under The X In Texas
4. Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)
5. Neons And Nylons
6. Truck Drivin' Man
7. Alexis From Texas
8. Whatever Made Me Think
9. I Saw Your Face In The Moon
10. The Walls Of This Old Honky Tonk
11. Rodeo
12. For All Our Cowboy Friends
13. Dawson Legate
14. Rodeo Blues
15. Two Pairs Of Levis And A Pair Of Justin Boots
16. Freckles Brown
17. My Adobe Hacienda
18. Bandito Gold
19. The Night The Copenhagen Saved The Day
20. Little Joe The Wrangler
21. My America

Amazon.com

This CD pairs two prime Red Steagall records from the mid-1970s and reveals just why the Texan has become a pillar of Western music. The 1976 collection Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills Music marks the pinnacle of his recording career, offering a wonderful assortment of Western swing and Texas tonk. The title creed remains his biggest hit, but there are a number of other original songs--barroom ballads like "Neons and Nylons" and "Whatever Made Me Think" and two-steppers like "My First Night Without You" and "The Walls of This Old Honky Tonk"--that display his ample gifts as a direct, down-to-earth songwriter (he was a successful songwriter before he was a performer). Steagall enlisted a superlative cast of musicians including guitarist Leon Rhodes, fiddler Johnny Gimble, and steel man Sonny Garrish to help him carry out his vision. For All Our Cowboy Friends, from the following year, is a quaint and heartfelt tribute to the cowboy and rodeo lifestyle (he was a rodeo rider and horse breeder before he was a songwriter) that oozes personality and authenticity. Together, these two albums form a definitive Western music manifesto. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

Red Steagall CD.......2007-05-14

Lone Star Beer & Bob Wills Music is a good track, but For All Our Cowboy Friends is a GREAT track.

Two classic western albums.......2005-01-14

Red was never a big name in country music but he carved his own niche and made a good living in the process. He spent many years performing on the rodeo circuit. His main influences are western swing (especially Bob Wills) and cowboy music (especially Marty Robbins). The two albums presented here demonstrate Red's music superbly.

Lone star beer and Bob Wills music, the first album here, is a western swing album. Red wrote or co-wrote five of the songs here including the title track. One of the other songs is a brilliant cover of Truck driving man, perhaps the best-known song here. In its way, this album is a fitting tribute to Bob Wills although none of his songs are covered here.

For all our cowboy friends, the second album, is a collection of cowboy songs. Red wrote six of the ten songs here including the title track. There are covers of My adobe hacienda and Little Joe the wrangler but Red avoided all the cowboy classics. With original songs as good as Red contributed to this album, he had no need to record the oldies although I'm sure he could have done them superbly.

The albums presented here are far removed from the commercial mainstream but there is a significant market for this type of music. If you enjoy western swing music by such as Bob Wills or Asleep at the wheel, buy this. If you enjoy cowboy music by such as Marty Robbins or Michael Martin Murphey, buy this. If you enjoy traditional country music with plenty of steel guitar and fiddle, buy this. But if you don't enjoy any of those types of music, look for something else.

Red's the Best!.......2003-01-29

Are you a fan of western swing? How 'bout cowboys and rodeo? If you can answer yes to either of these, and you like western music then you owe it to yourself to check this out. Red, quite simply, puts out the best. I've been following him since the late 70's, used to follow him to honky-tonks and rodeos, from Sayre, Oklahoma to the NFR. Had both on albums but just now found these on CD. Try this CD and see if it's not the best combo of western-swing and cowboy music you've ever heard. Red, if you see this, wishing you all the best and a great big thank you for your music.

Best of Red Steagall.......2001-07-10

If you appreciate Red Steagall you will appreciate this cd. It has some of his best Texas Swing music and his very best Rodeo Songs. After thousands of miles my tape of "All My Cowboy Friends" finally wore out and I thought I would never find another copy. Now I have another copy to help me get down the road again. Steagall's music is not for everyone but if you like his music this cd is what your looking for.

good news and not-quite-good news.......2000-03-29

The first 10 cuts -- the ones that comprise the wonderful 1976album Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills Music -- are as close to perfectionas honkytonk swing gets. As I hear it again after a long separation, the album sounds as good as it did when I bought the LP version nearly a quarter-century ago and spent the next few years playing it down to the grooves. "Neons and Nylons" holds its own against any country song about drinkin', dancin', and chasin' women -- an inexplicably neglected masterpiece of hillbilly art and a surprisingly subtle evocation of both good times and melancholy reflection. "Under the X in Texas" and "Alexis from Texas" swing jauntily, and "Whatever Made Me Think" is as powerful a catch-in-the-throat country weeper as you're ever going to hear. With its brilliantly imagined and executed stripped-down sound, the album wastes not a note or a lick, and it lays end to end one magnificent song after another, reminding the listener just how good country music can be when placed in the right hands. Perhaps inevitably, Red Steagall's follow-up, included here (the last 11 cuts), is something of a letdown, a decent though hardly outstanding collection of cowboy (mostly rodeo) songs, none bad but none especially memorable; certainly none gets close to the standards Ian Tyson set long ago in his own rodeo tales, notably "Someday Soon" and "Old Cheyenne." Steagall's cover of "My Adobe Hacienda" is just plain uninspired; on the other hand, he proves that you can't go wrong with the venerable Western folk ballad "Little Joe the Wrangler." His "My America," though no "This Land Is Your Land," is better than its title would lead you to believe. Steagall's heart may be on the Western plains, but his soul is in the honkytonk.

Average customer rating: The King Is Dead... Long Live The Knig Bob Wills, For the Last Time! Fiddle Playing,Footstompin,Handclappin FUN! Bob Wills Bob Wills is STILL the King

For the Last Time Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Capitol ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Similar Items: Take Me Back to Tulsa The Essential Bob Wills 1935-1947 The King of Western Swing: 25 Hits (1935-1945) Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys Ride With Bob ASIN: B000002TOF Release Date: 1994-04-19

Tracks:

1. Playboy Theme
2. Yearning (Just For You)
3. Faded Love
4. What Makes Bob Holler
5. Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer)
6. Goin' Away Party
7. Big Ball's In Cowtown
8. Keeper Of My Heart
9. Twin Guitar Boogie
10. Bubbles In My Beer
11. Blue Bonnet Lane
12. When You Leave Amarillo (Turn Out The Lights)
13. San Antonio Rose
14. I Wonder If You Feel The Way I Do
15. My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You
16. Miss Molly
17. I Can't Go On This Way
18. That's What I Like 'Bout The South
19. Silver Lake Blues
20. Milk Cow Blues
21. Comin' Down From Denver
22. Baby, That Would Sure Go Good
23. She's Really Gone
24. Crippled Turkey

Amazon.com

In 1973, 40 years after founding the Texas Playboys, Bob Wills gathered many of his Playboy stars from the past in a Dallas studio for a final hurrah. On December 2 the Playboy alumni enjoyed a homecoming meal at the Wills house, and the following day they entered the studio as Wills guided the session from his wheelchair (put there by a debilitating stroke in 1969). Among the musicians were three vital contributors to the very first Playboy session in Dallas in 1935--pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and steel player Leon McAuliffe--as well as guitar great Eldon Shamblin (who joined in 1937) and disciple Merle Haggard, who'd waxed his own Wills tribute in 1970. With Wills mustering only the meekest of hollers, the Playboys joyously rolled through an assortment of Wills favorites, not knowing they would never see their leader again. Tired from the session, Wills left after only six songs and was unable to return for the next day's session. With Hoyle Nix filling in for Wills, the musicians completed the record with tears in their eyes. Wills had a second stroke the next day, lapsed into a coma, and never regained consciousness, perhaps content in his final long sleep for having heard his distinctive music one last time. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

The King Is Dead... Long Live The Knig.......2007-03-30

Nowhere in the world can you get a better piece of American music history for less than $8!!! I bought this album when it was first released in the early 70's. It was my first real "Country" music purchase as I was trying to find music that sent shivers up my spine. At the time, my two favourites were Jimmy Reed and Frank Zappa!!!!!!! Then along came Bob Wills and I found another. This album started my long and fruitful journey into country music and I find it difficult to recall a better album. Most of the reviewers here have got it right, except that Take Me Back To Tulsa was NOT on the original album. I particularly endorse the reviewer who wrote about the rhythm section and guitars. I am a guitarist of humble expertise and have been trying to copy some of the rhythm guitar patterns off these songs for the last 30 years or so and still struggle to work out how it's done. This is very sophisticated music, make no mistake. It may sound slight at first listen but delve deeper into the music and you will be richly rewarded. This album contains some of the best music and songs (esp. the late, great Cindy Walker) performed in the last century of American "roots" music. It is not a tribute album but the final Texas Playboys record and, given the technology of the day, probably the finest album made by one of the finest groups in music history. "Take it away Leon".

Bob Wills, For the Last Time!.......2007-03-24

I love this disc! Based on reviews by other customers I bought it and I am very satisfied! If you are not a big fan of Bob Wills already you will be after you listen to it.

Fiddle Playing,Footstompin,Handclappin FUN!.......2007-01-07

I had heard of This group before,but had never actually heard them before I bought this recording. A must have for your collection,and be sure to bring it out and play it often. You won't regret it. Fun listening!!

Bob Wills.......2006-07-10

This last recording in the earthly jouney of Bob Wills is a terrific reminder of a great musical talent! I highly recommend this for any fans of Texas Swing and Bob Wills !!! God blessed him richly!

Bob Wills is STILL the King.......2006-06-28

It does not get much better than this right here. I don't know if it is possible for an album to bring the listener so many different emotions. In one sense, the music is just so fun to listen to, but at the same time it is hard to listening to knowing that the king of Western Swing was less than a day away from going into a coma which would eventually take his life.

All in all, this is country music at its best. Be aware: if you listen to country radio today, you probably have never heard anything like this. This is REAL. This is music that you can tap your feet to and appreciate the lyrics. It is not the cookie cut crap that comes from the radio today.

Average customer rating: Love Western Swing Terrific Western Swing Legends of Country Music What makes Bob holler? A moving tribute to a great musician !

Legends of Country Music Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Sony ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Similar Items: If You Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It! Nashville Rebel Ride With Bob Friends of Old Time Music: The Folk Arrival 1961 - 1965 You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker ASIN: B000GRTR2E Release Date: 2006-08-29

Tracks:

1. Sunbonnet Sue
2. Nancy Jane
3. Osage Stomp
4. Get With It
5. Spanish Two Step
6. Maiden's Prayer
7. I Ain't Got Nobody
8. Who Walks In When I Walk Out
9. Oklahoma Rag
10. Sittin' On Top Of The World
11. I Can't Be Satisfied
12. Waltz In D
13. She's Killing Me
14. Bluin' The Blues
15. Steel Guitar Rag
16. Trouble In Mind
17. What's The Matter With The Mill
18. Basin Street Blues
19. Red Hot Gal Of Mine
20. Too Busy
21. Crippled Turkey
22. Bring It On Down To My House, Honey
23. Right Or Wrong
24. Swing Blues #1
25. White Heat

Tracks:

1. Steel Guitar Stomp
2. Rosetta
3. Blue Yodel No.1
4. I'm A Ding Dong Daddy (From Dumas)
5. Oozlin' Daddy Blues
6. Black Rider
7. Down Hearted Blues
8. Pray For The Lights To Go Out
9. San Antonio Rose
10. Silver Bells
11. Beaumont Rag
12. Whoa Babe
13. Ida Red
14. Yearning
15. I Wonder If You Feel The Way I Do
16. Prosperity Special
17. You're Okay
18. Liza Pull Down The Shades
19. That's What I Like 'Bout The South
20. My Window Faces The South
21. Don't Let The Deal Go Down
22. Lone Star Rag
23. That Brownskin Gal
24. Corrine Corrina
25. Time Changes Everything
26. Bob Wills Special
27. Big Beaver

Tracks:

1. New San Antonio Rose
2. Liebestraum
3. Lyla Lou
4. Maiden's Prayer
5. The Girl I Left Behind Me
6. I Knew The Moment I Lost You
7. Twin Guitar Special
8. Take Me Back To Tulsa
9. Takin' It Home
10. Cherokee Maiden
11. Dusty Skies
12. My Life's Been A Pleasure
13. Drop Us Off At Bob's Place
14. Home In San Antone
15. That Hot Lick Fiddlin' Man
16. Miss Molly
17. My Confession
18. Ten Years
19. Let's Ride With Bob
20. Bluer Than Blue
21. Hang Your Head In Shame
22. Texas Playboy Rag
23. Roly Poly
24. Stay A Little Longer
25. I Can't Go On This Way
26. I'm Thru Wasting Time On You
27. New Spanish Two Step

Tracks:

1. Sugar Moon
2. Brain Cloudy Blues
3. Bob Wills Boogie
4. Fat Boy Rag
5. The Kind Of Love I Can't Forget
6. Hometown Stomp
7. Misery
8. Deep Water
9. Bubbles In My Beer
10. Papa's Jumpin'
11. Sally Goodin'
12. Still Water Runs The Deepest
13. Blues For Dixie
14. Keeper Of My Heart
15. Ida Red Likes The Boogie
16. Boot Heel Drag
17. Faded Love
18. St. Louis Blues
19. Cadillac In Model 'A'
20. Heart To Heart Talk
21. Wabash Blues
22. A Big Ball In Cowtown (We'll Dance Around)
23. Pan Handle Rag
24. Blue Bonnet Lane
25. What Makes Bob Holler
26. Goin' Away Party

Amazon.com

Though Bob Wills has long been heralded as a country-music icon (an inspiration for artists from Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson through Lyle Lovett and Asleep at the Wheel, and toasted by Waylon Jennings in "Bob Wills Is Still the King"), the Texas fiddler considered himself more of a jazz bandleader. The Texas Playboys' signature dance-floor style of Western swing encompassed blues, jazz, country, and pop standards, with a sophistication at odds with the era's image of "hillbilly music." This four-disc centennial anthology (a little late, as Wills was born in 1905 and died in 1975) documents the musical progression of the band and its music from regional phenomenon to national treasure. The 105 tracks (remastered, but all previously released) showcase the legendary "twin guitars" of Leon McAuliffe and Eldon Shamblin, the smooth crooning of Tommy Duncan, the irrepressible spirit of Wills himself, and a songbook of classics such as "New San Antonio Rose" (with lyrics added to the original instrumental), "Take Me Back to Tulsa," and "Faded Love." In jukeboxes and roadhouses throughout the Southwest, it is Bob Wills, not Benny Goodman, who remains the "King of Swing." --Don McLeese

Customer Reviews:

Love Western Swing.......2007-06-08

My husband and I have been a Bob Wills fan for many years. He is 80 and a collector of Bob Wills music. He was truly the "King of Western Swing" and this is a wonderful collection of his music.

Terrific Western Swing.......2007-05-06

I own other Bob Wills recordings, but this is the most comprehensive. It's not really country music at all...It has its own kind of energy and incorporates various styles of music. It's inventive and ageless and it's just pure pleasure to hear.

Legends of Country Music.......2007-04-11

Really a good set, with a lot of original recordings. If you like original Texas swing, this is a must box set for your collection

What makes Bob holler?.......2006-10-03

I must own about 30 Bob Wills cd's and this has made many of them obsolete. If you are a Bob Wills fan there is no need for me to convince you of Will's and his band's virtuosity. For those of you who aren't familiar with Bob Wills and western swing music, I think you owe it a hearing. Wills mixed blues, jazz, big band, and western music and literally invented what we know as western swing. The list of great musicians who played with this band are impressive. Not many people realize that Rolling Stone magazine selected Eldon Shamblin as the greatest rhythm guitar player of all time.
The recording quality of this cd is so far above everything else I've heard that it must be stressed here.
What makes Bob Holler? If he were alive today this reproduction of his great music would!

A moving tribute to a great musician !.......2006-09-22

Born to a poor family in Limestone County, Texas, Bob Wills (the undisputed "King of Western Swing") has become synonymous with that style of music. In 2006, this 4-disc release in Columbia "Legends of Country Music" series is a great way to celebrate his centennial! Wills had learned to play the fiddle by age ten. By the late 1920s, he and Herman Arnspiger were performing in the Fort Worth area as The Wills Fiddle Band. In 1931, they were joined by Milton & Durwood Brown and called themselves Aladdin's Laddies. Disc #1 in this set begins in 1932 with recordings of The Light Crust Doughboys, the band formed after the Light Crust Flour Co. hired the band for radio broadcasts. Because of a trademark, Victor Records called them The Fort Worth Doughboys. By 1934, Wills had formed his own band, moved to Tulsa, and signed with Okeh Records. Disc #2 covers 1937-1940, and disc #3 spans 1941-45. Disc #4 begins with 1946 and ends with Bob Wills' final session (1973 in Dallas).

It's important for such compilations to include a musician's big hits, as well as a sampling of their entire repertoire and influential pieces. We hear many favorites like "Big Ball in Cowtown," "Bubbles In My Beer," "Roly Poly," "Take Me Back to Tulsa" and "Stay A Little Longer." "San Antonio Rose" and "New San Antonio Rose" are both included, the former written in just 30 minutes when Wills needed another number at a recording session. Pandhandle Rag was a top ten hit in 1949. We're given the 1969 version here. Leon McAuliffe's influential "Steel Guitar Rag" appears on disc #1. In the 1960, Wills made the charts with "Shape Up or Ship Out" and "I Don't Love Nobody." Unfortunately, these songs are not provided. And how in the heck could they not have included "Across the Alley from the Alamo"? Oh well ... can't have everything.

With 105 tracks in total, this compilation certainly tells the musical story with both old-time fiddling (e.g. Osage Stomp) and country-styled jazz (e.g. Trouble in Mind, Basin Street Blues) well represented. But don't forget about the times that Bob Wills lived and played his music in, just after the Depression. Many of his fans were poor, the working folks in need of a charismatic performer to look up to. Somewhat of a folk hero, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys traveled the backroads to rural areas in a large bus with a big longhorn steer head on the front. With heavy emphasis on the backbeat and guitar chords played over a moving bass line, the music was infectious an designed for dancing. And then there were the great lyrics, often sung by the great Tommy Duncan. Excellent notes, in a booklet with many excellent historic photographs, are an added bonus in this legends series. All I can say, is that it's a moving tribute to a great musician. So, to quote Bob Wills, "Aaaaa-haaaa!" (Joe Ross, Roseburg, OR.)

Average customer rating: this is the real deal made for anyone with ears. And I thought Volume 1 was good... A Perfect Introduction to Western Swing Vocals too dated to be enjoyable. Now I know what Waylon meant when he sang "Bob Wills is King

Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 2 Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Rhino / Wea ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music Rhino Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music Similar Items: Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 5 Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 4: You're From Texas! For the Last Time Take Me Back to Tulsa Anthology 1935-1973 ASIN: B00000333U Release Date: 1993-09-28

Tracks:

1. Take Me Back To Tulsa
2. Faded Love
3. Right Or Wrong
4. Bring It On Down To My House
5. Cherokee Maiden
6. Steel Guitar Rag
7. Stay A Little Longer
8. Roly Poly
9. Cotton Eyed Joe
10. Time Changes Everything
11. Corrine, Corrina
12. Ida Red
13. Maiden's Prayer
14. San Antonio Rose

Amazon.com essential recording

Merle Haggard once said that to simply call Bob Wills's music "country" would be like calling Louis Armstrong just a trumpet player. Wills was a synthesizer and innovator, along with Jimmie Rodgers and Elvis Presley the great integrator of black and white musical styles, and one of the pillars of modern country music. The Tiffany Transcriptions are the most important and comprehensive of all of Wills's recordings, and volume 2 is a fine window on his creation of Western swing. Made for radio syndication in the late '40s at the height of the Texas Playboys' popularity, these recordings feature Wills's premiere ensemble and some of his tastiest songs: "Take Me Back to Tulsa," "Faded Love," and "San Antonio Rose." Given the age of these recordings, the fidelity is quite good, and the handling of diverse styles, from blues to jazz to ragtime to honky-tonk, is always fresh and versatile. --Roy Kasten

Customer Reviews:

this is the real deal made for anyone with ears........2003-09-09

Without getting into the history: this is just good music suitable for anyone at any time with ears.
This is the real deal in regard to Western Swing. The Tiffany recordings were done for the Tiffany Furniture Company of Oakland in the period after WWII. They were sold to radio stations as music to play over the air along with or without commercials for the furniture company. This was done durign a time when playing normal commercial records on the radio was a rare or new thing.
If you look on the discography you will find there were more than a hundred of recordings done by Wills over the years for this operations. So even if Rounder has put out seven or eight volumes of this music, they are still just offering the best of the collection. These were rare treats among the collectors. I remember first hearing about them around 1977 when a friend of mine who lived in NYC mentioned he knew someone in Indiana who had taped copies of these records. I remember how I treated the tape he made me like a golden jewel, carrying it with myself personally when I moved.
People I know who actually heard the Texas Playboys play during the 1930s and 1940s say these recording say this is the way the Playboys sounded at their best live. This is the repertoire. Since it was officially a non-commercial recording, they recording all the songs they would play at live dates, and not just songs they recorded which were usually filtered by the Columbia, MGM, and MCA operation to make sure they recorded songs that had the right publishing andwere charting for others. This recording is atypical of the Tiffany recordings in that there are no non-Western Swing pop hits and I think almost every tune here was actually recorded on the Playboys' Columbia Records.
On other Tiffany recordings you can hear the Playboys make wonderful music on Nat King Cole's Straighten up and Fly Right, Basie's Swing Blues, Ellington's Take the A Train, Dinah Shore's Sentimental Journey, and even a gret instrumental on the theme from the movie Mission to Moscow!
The quality isn't always as good as the Columbia and MGM sides, but that is because they simply recorded all day whenever the tour schedule took the Playboys into San Fransisco, cutting tunes without rehearsals, on the first take, cutting five or six or seven sides in a day, as opposed to the standard recording studio concept of 4 sides in three hours, which was never met. However, on a number of these tunes they really cut lose in instrumentals they way they don't on the commercial disks. If you love the repartee between Bob and the Band, you get a lot more of that on these tunes.
What these records represent for the history of Western Swing is priceless. The guitar trio sound grew out of the duos that Eldon Shamblin and Leon MacAufliffe did with Wills before WWII. When Jimmy Wyble (who went on to be one of the key Jazz guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s) and Cameron Hill came in during the War and were joined by Noel Boggs, that sound was perfected. On these sides we hear it bluesier and hotter played by Junior Barnard or Eldon on guitar, Tiny Moore on Mandolin, and Boggs or Herbie Remington on steel guitar. You don't get as much of this on the contemporary Columbia sounds, although you did on the first MGM sides there was a revival.
It's interesting people are picking on Cherokee Maid claiming it's not contemporary. Merle Haggard cut an exact reproduction of it using members of the playboys around 1980 (of course Merle was using former playboy Tiny Moore as a regular member of his band and using Eldon and Johnny Gimble in his regular band alot then too). It went right to number one on the country Charts and stayed there about a month. Not contemporary?
This isn't history. Its laid back jazz bluesy music, played for fun.
Listen to it

And I thought Volume 1 was good..........2003-08-05

I've never been much of a country music fan, and my musical upbringing was antithetical to it. Someone I knew used to refer to country music as "chunk and puke" music to the approbation of all. Of course there is bad music in every genre (there's some appalling rock/pop out there that is just as bad as the worst country music), but excusing an entire genre is almost always a sign of narrow-mindedness, and if you're uptight about country music you would likely pass right over Bob Wills, which would be a great misfortune for any music lover.

It should be said outright that the music on this CD is not pure "country", but today's musical labeling and categorizing systems would put it there (and you will find Bob Wills in the "Country" section of music stores), probably due to the cowboy hats, the steel guitar, and whooping of the band. The truth is that this is rich music combining country, jazz and swing. The musicianship and singing are top notch. "Country Swing" would probably be the most forgiving modern label.

This CD collects the "popular songs" that were played during the Tiffany sessions of the mid-forties. However, the CD booklet doesn't explain what methodology was used to determine what a "popular" a song is (are these "hits" or "most requested" or "most played" or "most bought"???). The CD is subtitled "Best of the Tiffanys" and it's unclear what this means. Nonetheless, the music is what's important here, even if the cover design scares you off (and there's nothing subtle about the cover of this CD).

There are amazing songs here, and it's easy to think that some of these songs were "hits" in their day. "Take Me Back To Tulsa", "Ida Red" and "San Antonio Rose" are obvious standouts. The music is upbeat, fun, and exhilarating. One track "Maiden's Prayer" is slow and melodically beautiful with it's harmonizing multiple fiddles. The guitar solos are searing jazz and there are trumpet solos that at first almost sound out of place (but when you realize that this is not just "country" music, you also realize that they're right in place).

There are of course anachronisms since this music was made over sixty years ago. "Cherokee Maiden" would not fly in today's market with it's "tribal" drumming, etc. Some of the lyrics are also right out of a different time (because, well... they are). "Take Me Back To Tulsa" includes these lines:

Little bee sucks the blossom
The big bee gets the honey
Little men raise the cotton
The beer joints get the money

There are not many lyrics like this still around, for better or worse depending on your point of view.

If you're looking to expand your musical horizons (on an enjoyment or a historical level), this CD and/or Volume 1 of the Tiffany Transcriptions are good places to start.

A Perfect Introduction to Western Swing.......2000-10-30

These discs were made to sell to radio stations in the 1940s and the playing is livelier, more fun, and jazzier than the studio versions of these Bob Wills classics. The Piano is awesome, the Steel Guitar is awesome, the fiddle is awesome. AWWWWWWWWW YEAHHH! In all reality this may be the best Western Swing disc in existance. Listen to this and catch yourself singing "Daddy's little Fatty" and "I'm too young to marry" as you walk around the rest of the day. Buy this and be happy!

Vocals too dated to be enjoyable........2000-08-24

This CD contains 5 of the best country/western songs ever written: Take Me Back to Tulsa, Faded Love, Cherokee Maiden, Maiden's Prayer and San Antonio Rose. Unfortunately, they were recorded in 1946 and are somewhat lacking by today's standards.

The instrumentation is fine but the singing will send cold chills down your spine if you are not familiar with Bob Wills' style. Just when you think to yourself that this doesn't sound so bad, a noise like a tomcat just got his genitalia caught in a bicycle sprocket wheel will emanate from the song you are listening to. This probably sounded pretty hot in 1946 but it just don't do it today (for me at least)

I would stay away from these Tiffany Transcriptions and buy some newer versions of these songs by the Texas Playboys or some of the tribute CDs' by other artists.

Now I know what Waylon meant when he sang "Bob Wills is King.......1999-04-14

I wasn't really familiar with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys before I heard this C.D. Oh, I had heard all about them, but never actually heard them. This is a fun album, and I guess that's the best way to describe Will's music in one word-- "fun". With Tommy Duncan's lead vocals, and Will's whooping like a wild-man in the foreground, it is absurd, and funny. "AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!", Wills bellows like a musical W.C. Fields! I was familiar with a few of the songs on this collection, but not these renditions. "Right or Wrong" is on this C.D., and I know that one through George Strait, who had a hit with it in the early eighties. Same goes with "Cherokee Maiden", which Merle Haggard brought to number one on the charts in 1976, the widely recorded "Stay a Little Longer", which I was familiar with since I was in the kindergarten, and "Faded Love", which I've heard from Patsy Cline, Ray Price, and Willie Nelson, and others. "Take Me Back to Tulsa" is a song that I have heard before, as well. Buy the record. It'll expose you to real Western Swing, with the whoops, the ad-libbing, the muted trumpets, and the fiddles. Great stuff!!!!

Average customer rating: Very Pleased!

King of Western Swing Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Jsp Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Similar Items: For the Last Time Take Me Back to Tulsa Reinventing the Wheel Legends of Country Music Last of the Breed ASIN: B000O591AQ Release Date: 2007-05-15

Tracks:

1. Sunbonnet Sue
2. Nancy Jane
3. Osage Stomp
4. Get With It
5. I Can't Give You Anything But Love
6. Spanish Two Step
7. Maiden's Prayer
8. Wang Wang Blues
9. St. Louis Blues
10. Good Old Oklahoma
11. Blue River
12. Mexicali Rose
13. I Ain't Got Nobody
14. Never No More Blues
15. Who Walks In When I Walk Out
16. Old Fashioned Love
17. Oklahoma Rag
18. Black And Blue Rag
19. Sittin' On Top Of The World
20. Four Or Five Times
21. I Can't Be Satisfied
22. Smith's Reel
23. Harmony
24. She's Killing Me
25. Weary Of The Same Old Stuff

Tracks:

1. No Matter How Seh Done It
2. Bluin' The Blues
3. Steel Guitar Rag
4. Get Along Home Cindy
5. Trouble In Mind
6. What's The Matter With The Mill
7. Sugar Blues
8. Basin Street Blues
9. Red Hot Gal Of Mine
10. Too Busy
11. Back Home Again In Indiana
12. Fan It
13. Mean Mama Blues
14. Bring It On Down To My House
15. Right Or Wrong
16. Swing Blues #1
17. Swing Blues #2
18. White Heat
19. Dedicated To You
20. Playboy Stomp
21. Steel Guitar Stomp
22. Rosetta
23. Bleeding Hearted Blues
24. Tie Me To Your Apron Strings Again
25. Never No More Hard Times Blues

Tracks:

1. Sunbonnet Sue
2. The New St. Louis Blues
3. I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas
4. Oozlin' Daddy Blues
5. Black Rider
6. Everybody Does It In Hawaii
7. Alexander's Ragtime Band
8. Blue Prelude
9. Sophisticated Hula
10. Pray For The Lights To Go Out
11. Gambling Polka Dot Blues
12. Keep Knocking (But You Can't Come In)
13. Loveless Love
14. Oh Lady Be Good
15. Way Down Upon The Swanee River
16. Oh You Beautiful Doll
17. Moonlight And Roses (Bring Mem'ries Of You)
18. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate
19. Tulsa Stomp
20. Empty Bed Blues
21. Little Red Head
22. San Antonio Rose
23. Little Girl, Go Ask Your Mama
24. Carolina In The Morning
25. The Convict And The Rose

Tracks:

1. Silver Bells
2. Dreamy Eyes Waltz
3. Beaumont Rag
4. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
5. If I Could Bring Back My Buddy
6. Whoa Babe
7. Ida Red
8. Yearning (Just For You)
9. I Wonder If You Feel The Way I Do
10. Prosperity Special
11. Drunkard's Blues
12. You're Okay
13. Liza Pull Down The Shades
14. That's What I Like 'Bout The South
15. My Window Faces The South
16. The Waltz You Saved For Me
17. Don't Let The Deal Go Down
18. You Don't Love Me (But I'll Always Care)
19. No Wonder
20. Lone Star Rag
21. There's Going To Be A Party (For The Old Folks)
22. I Don't Lov'a Nobody
23. That Brownskin Gal
24. Corrine Corrina
25. Let Me Call You Sweetheart (I'm In Love With You)

Customer Reviews:

Very Pleased!.......2007-07-05

I bought this as a gift for my husband. He absolutely loves it! The sound quality is excellent! He is very pleased!

Average customer rating: For the money this set is tops! the galvanized washin' tub As good as it gets Fascinating band but too many steel guitars for my taste Bob Wills Is Still The King

Anthology 1935-1973 Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys Manufacturer: Rhino / Wea ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Rhino Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music Similar Items: Take Me Back to Tulsa Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 2 For the Last Time Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys: The Golden Years of Western Swing The Essential Bob Wills 1935-1947 ASIN: B0000032MM Release Date: 1991-07-02

Tracks:

1. Maiden's Prayer
2. Steel Guitar Rag
3. Right Or Wrong
4. Time Changes Everything
5. Corrine, Corrina
6. Big Beaver
7. New San Antonio Rose
8. Take Me Back To Tulsa
9. Cherokee Maiden
10. Home In San Antone
11. Miss Molly
12. My Confession
13. Texas Playboy Rag
14. Roly-Poly
15. Stay A little Longer
16. Basin Street Blues

Tracks:

1. My Window Faces The South
2. Fat Boy Rag
3. Three Guitar Special
4. Deep Water
5. Bubbles In My Beer
6. Blues For Dixie
7. South
8. Cotton Patch Blues
9. Boot Heel Drag
10. Faded Love
11. St. Louis Blues
12. Cadillac In Model 'A'
13. Heart To Heart Talk
14. The Jobob Rag
15. Blue Bonnet Lane
16. What Makes Bob Holler

Amazon.com essential recording

Building on the sacred tradition of the Texas fiddle band, Wills's Western swing became country music's answer to big-band jazz. Wills gave his Playboys ample room for advanced improvisation, adding instruments (drums, horns, piano, electric guitar) that were not associated with country music. He drew on a variety of styles--not just fiddle tunes and jazz standards, but also polka, blues, mariachi, and Dixieland--punctuating the music with his light-hearted exhortations. This 2 CD compilation provides an overview of his career: from his early Columbia hits with steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe and rhythm guitarist Eldon Shamblin to his final 1973 session, which he conducted from a wheelchair. For those wanting to delve deeper, Columbia's box set and Rhino's nine-volume Tiffany Transcriptions focus more thoroughly on Wills's prime. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

For the money this set is tops!.......2005-11-03

I own this really good set from Rhino and it has many of Bob Wills' classics on it. This set is fine but for the true Western Swing fan like myself I understand that the 11 CD Box Set "San Antonio Rose" from the Bear Family has all 300 of his early recordings along with a 1940 movie with Bob and Tex Ritter and to top it off a hard backed Book. I have purchased many of the Bear Familys great sets including Wanda Jackson, Jimmy Martin, The Louvin Brothers and the 7CD Anita Carter set that ran in price about as high as I can afford to pay (my Connie Smith set was about the cheapest). I would love to have this set from Bear Family but at $300.00 I don't think so. I think that I will stay content with my 2CD Rhino Collection. If anyone out there does happen to have a Bear Family set for sale at an affordable price I am interested!

"Enjoy" Joe Kopeck / Parkville,Maryland

the galvanized washin' tub.......2004-07-14

I'm lookig for this song....does anyone remember it or able to guide as to where to find it. I THINK it was played by Bob Wills......help....it is a childhood memory.THANKS!

As good as it gets.......2004-07-14

If you like the hot club of Cowtown, you will like this. This is the period of Wills' band that their work is founded on, listen to the Devilish Mary on here that they made the title of an album. Listen to the great masterful Sally Gooden, so good to be believed. This is great and hot and sometimes just so good you cannot believe it. This is more a guitar and steel guitar and mandolin players record than a fiddling record. It is also significant that while most of the Western Swingers went into the Hollywood Cowboy, mellow singing, buisnessman's bounce phase typified by Spade Cooley and Hank Penny, Will's band here in the postwar years stays red hot jazzy, bluesy, and fiddlin it all the way out!\

Without getting into the history: this is just good music suitable for anyone at any time with ears.
This is the real deal in regard to Western Swing. The Tiffany recordings were done for the Tiffany Furniture Company of Oakland in the period after WWII. They were sold to radio stations as music to play over the air along with or without commercials for the furniture company. This was done when playing normal commercial records on the radio was a rare and new thing.

If you look on the discography you will find there were more than 200 recordings done by Wills over the years for this operation. So even if Rounder has put out ten volumes of this music, they are still just offering the best of the collection. These were rare treats among the collectors. I remember first hearing about them around 1977 when a friend of mine who lived in NYC mentioned he knew someone in Indiana who had taped copies of these records. I remember how I treated the tape he made me like a golden jewel, carrying it with myself personally when I moved.

People I know who actually heard the Texas Playboys play during the 1930s and 1940s say these recording say this is the way the Playboys sounded at their best live. This is the repertoire. Since it was officially a non-commercial recording, they recording all the songs they would play at live dates, and not just songs they recorded which were usually filtered by the Columbia, MGM, and MCA operation to make sure they recorded songs that had the right publishing andwere charting for others.

On other Tiffany recordings you can hear the Playboys make wonderful music on Nat King Cole's Straighten up and Fly Right, Basie's Swing Blues, Ellington's Take the A Train, Dinah Shore's Sentimental Journey, and even a gret instrumental on the theme from the movie Mission to Moscow!

The recording quality isn't always as good as the Columbia and MGM sides, but that is because they simply recorded all day whenever the tour schedule took the Playboys into San Fransisco, cutting tunes without rehearsals, on the first take, cutting five or six or seven sides in a day, as opposed to the standard recording studio concept of 4 sides in three hours, which was never met. However, on a number of these tunes they really cut lose in instrumentals they way they don't on the commercial disks. If you love the repartee between Bob and the Band, you get a lot more of that on these tunes.

What these records represent for the history of Western Swing is priceless. The guitar trio sound grew out of the duos that Eldon Shamblin and Leon MacAufliffe did with Wills before WWII. When Jimmy Wyble (who went on to be one of the key Jazz guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s) and Cameron Hill came in during the War and were joined by Noel Boggs, that sound was perfected. On these sides we hear it bluesier and hotter played by Junior Barnard or Eldon on guitar, Tiny Moore on Mandolin, and Boggs or Herbie Remington on steel guitar. You don't get as much of this on the contemporary Columbia sounds, although you did on the first MGM sides there was a revival

If you have one CD, get this one so you can listen to the Sally Gooden on it. It is a unique recording, of which the Hot Club of Cowtown is only a pale imitation, since they only really have a trio, and this adds in guitar, steel guitar and other instruments. You must have that cut!

Fascinating band but too many steel guitars for my taste.......2004-05-15

When I was much younger, I heard a Bob Wills record. I don't recall which one it was, but it was a fairly conventional fiddle and steel guitar mix, no trumpets, saxes or jazz bass. Then, decades later, I heard this set and was both delighted and surprised by the truly excellent music that Wills presented to his audiences, which included a fair dose of real jazz, blues and Mexican rhythms. Among my favorite tracks on this set are "Cherokee Maiden" (in my view, one of the standout recordings of the entire Swing Era), "Big Beaver," "Stay a Little Longer," "Fat Boy Rag" and "Basin Street Blues." Also very good are "Three Guitar Special," "Corrinne Corrina," "New San Antonio Rose," "Roly Poly" and "South." But for me, personally, there are still too many steel guitar solos that just don't grab me.

Wills' best band, judging from aural evidence, was probably his postwar group of 1946-48 with the superb Junior Barnard on guitar and Millard Kelso, his finest pianist and a real jazz swinger. Without having heard the complete set, then, I would probably recommend the Tiffany transcriptions as aural highlights of a great country band that could provide some truly unexpected jazz thrills. As an overview of his complete career, however, this Rhino set is probably quite accurate in showing the real mix of jazz to fiddle band music the Wills group played.

Your willingness to buy this set will probably depend on your interest in Texas fiddle music in general and Wills in particular. I personally find that the 17 tracks I really like give me constant enjoyment, however. Wills' band was a truly happy one, with an esprit de corps that didn't always exist in more polished and sophisticated groups of the time, and I do believe that both the least and most sophisticated musical listeners will find something here of high quality and lasting pleasure.

Bob Wills Is Still The King.......2000-04-26

No one can dispute Bob Wills' dominance of the Western Swing genre, even twenty-five years after his death. The thirty-two songs on this album are all classics, and they, along with the fairly extensive liner notes, provide a nice retrospective on Bob Wills' long career. For true fans who have the money, though, the Tiffany Transcriptions set is probably the way to go.

Music Album:

1. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - 24 Greatest Hits
2. Box of Willie [Box set]
3. Brooks & Dunn/Rascal Flatts
4. Buck Owens Sings Tommy Collins
5. Christmas...Not Just Any Night
6. Classic Gospel Fiddle Playin'
7. Classic Recordings [Import]
8. Classics by Willie Nelson
9. Clayton Lee
10. Complete D Singles Collection: The Sounds of Houston, Texas, Vol. 6 [Box set]

Music Album