Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys – Silver Bells (1938)

Bob Wills was the driving force behind Western Swing, a form of Country & Western that fuses Jazz, Hillbilly, Blues, Big Band Swing, and many more rhythm forms together creating a truly Unique, Diverse and Unforgettable sound. Wills’ shrewd mix of horns, fiddles and steel guitar made for a swinging sound that grabbed the public’s ear during the mid 1930s and 1940s. Bob Wills was born into a family of fiddlers on March 6, 1905. His father, John Wills regularly won Texas fiddling competitions. Bob learned how to play fiddle and mandolin from his father. As a young man, Wills performed at house dances, medicine shows and in 1929 made his debut on the radio. With commercial sponsorship, Wills’ bands performed on radio in the early 1930s as “Aladdin’s Laddies” (for the Aladdin Lamp Co.) and “The Light Crust Doughboys” (for Light Crust Flour). Following a salary dispute, Wills renamed his band the Texas Playboys and relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had a live radio show. This exposure led to a contract with the American Recording Corporation – later absorbed into Columbia Records. In September 1935, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys recorded their first songs in a makeshift recording studio in an old Dallas Warehouse. From that point on, The Texas Playboys became an overnight sensation and recorded prolifically and made such classics as “Steel Guitar Rag”, “Maiden’s Prayer”, “Take Me Back to Tulsa” and Wills’ signature song, “San Antonio Rose”. Their biggest hit, was “New …
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