Stan Paregien, Editor
Billy Jack Wills
(Deceased)Billy Jack Wills was a brother to Bob Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills and Luke Wills.
John Wills, the father of Bob and the others, wrote an instrumental came to be known as "Faded Love" by the time Bob had his own band. But it wasn't until 1950 that Bob and brother Billy Jack Wills put words to their father's beautiful melody. And they did it just two years before John's death. Bob would later sign over all royalties from the song to his mother, as an appropriate provision for her financial security. Since then, over 300 artists have recorded the timeless classic.
Bob Wills
(Deceased)
Bob Wills, legendary band leader and entertainer, was born as James Robert Wills on March 6, 1905 east of Kosse, Texas (Limestone County) in an area known as The Moss Springs Community. His father and grandfather were outstanding fiddlers. So it came as no surprise that he mastered the instrument at an early age.
"Jim Rob," as he was known then, spent some of his youth in Turkey, Texas. He and his family moved there when he was eight. It was there that he played his first ranch dance. Reared in poverty among unlettered white and black musicians who expressed their deepest emotions in music, he learned to perform and compose from his heart and soul. Like those musicians, he was concerned more with musical feeling than with musical propriety. This folk environment contributed to Wills uninhibited, free, experimental, and often radical approach to music that put him years ahead of his time.
And it is there in tiny (population about 600 people) Turkey, Texas that thousands of people flock in April of each year to enjoy a "Bob Wills Day" featuring bands playing Bob Wills music.
Bob Wills entered radio with the Light Crust Doughboys in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1929. Radio exposure meant more dances with larger crowds, as America was a nation of radios at this time. Before the breakup of the original Doughboys a number of prominent musicians joined their ranks including Sleepy Johnson, Leon Huff, Leon McAuliffe and Bob's brother, Johnnie Lee Wills. Bob left the Doughboys in 1933.
He formed a new band, "Bob Wills & His Playboys," in 1933. The other members were Tommy Duncan, Kermit Whalen, June Whalen, and Bob's brother Johnnie Lee Wills. The Playboys moved to Waco and played on a radio station there. Then it was on to Oklahoma City for a brief stay with a radio station, and that is where they became the "Texas Playboys".
There next stop was in Tulsa, Oklahoma on radio station KVOO. These were the glory days for the group. They were heard throughout the southwest. They commanded large fees for dances, and they recorded and sold record after record. They were there from 1934 to 1942.
When their 1940 recording of "New San Antonio Rose" went gold, Bob Wills and his band were firmly entrenched as the most famous western band in America. The songs that were written by Wills and his fellow band members also became American classics: San Antonio Rose, Faded Love, Take Me Back to-Tulsa, Eight'r from Decatur, Time Changes Everything, and Panhandle Rag.
He made 550 recordings and appeared in 26 Hollywood pictures. His music was a blend of big band, blues, dixieland, and jazz, among others. Musically, it contributed the drums and Hawaiian steel guitar to Country music.
Ever the showman, Bob Wills was famous for his big cigars and his jovial chatter inserted between the lines sung by his lead singers. Perhaps his most famous trademark was “Ahh-Ha, take it away Leon” -- a call for legendary steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe to take the musical lead.
It was Bob's magnetic stage presence, with his constant Cheshire grin and rhythmic regal bearing, that brought the most basic element out of the music. It may have had roots in blues, jazz, and working man's folk music, but it was always happy. A sense of joy could even be found in sad songs . It had to be happy because it was for dancing
But along came World War II on Dec. 7, 1941. Suddenly members of the band were either volunteering for or being drafted into the military. Manufacturing plants related to the War effort added second or third shifts. People moved from the midwest to the West Coast where new jobs were available. And, as a consequence, attendance at dances and radio audience listening patterns changed.
In 1942 Bob and the Texas Playboys (minus Johnnie Lee Wills and others who kept the radio program going in Tulsa) moved to California.
By 1945, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had achieved enough notoriety that they were invited to play at the Grand Ole Opry, sometimes called the mother church of country music. The Opry staff told Bob that his drummer couldn't play, because drums had never, ever been used on that program. Bob let them know, in some pretty angry and graphic language, that it was all the Texas Playboys or none. However, Bob did reluctantly agree to let the drums be set up behind the curtains so that, while they could be heard, they could not be seen. That was the way it was supposed to go. But when they came out that night and started to play their first song, Bob ordered his band members to move the drums out from behind the curtain. And they performed with the drums in full view. Unfortunately, of course, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were never invited back.
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for Part 2 of the life of Bob Wills.
Chill Wills
(Deceased)
Chill T. Wills, actor, was born on July 18, 1902 in Seagoville, TX. He was a talented musician who, by the age of 12, was playing in tent shows and on vaudeville. Later, he and his group, "The Avalon Boys," traveled around the country.And it was on one of those concert tours that an RKO executive saw them and signed them all to movie contracts. They worked together in a few B-Westerns.
Soon Chill Wills left the other group members and branched out on his own. Wills himself did the bass singing to which comic Stan Laurel lip-sinced in the Laurel & Hardy film, "Way Out West".
Chill Wills appeared in more than 100 films. Some of his Western credits include Bar 20 Rides Again (1935), Call of the Prairie (1936), Way Out West (1937), Racketeers of the Range (1939), The Westerners (1940), Belle Starr (1941), Apache Trail (1942), The Yearling (1946), Northwest Stampede (1948), Tulsa (1949), Rio Grande (1950), Cattle Drive (1951), The Man From the Alamo (1953), Giant (1956), Gun Glory (1957), The Alamo (1960), McLintock! (1963), The Rounders (1965), and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
In John Wayne's epic film "The Alamo" (1960), Chill Wills received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Beekeeper". But insiders say that he shot himself in the foot and lost the award because put on a humungous ad campaign to win it.
Chill Wills in "Gun Glory" (1957)Wills also supplied the voice of Francis the Talking Mule in the popular 1950s movie series. He costarred in two TV series, "Frontier Circus" (1961) and "The Rounders" (1967), a spin-off of the feature film which starred Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda.
He died of cancer on December 15, 1978 in Encino, CA. His remains were cremated, and his ashes are at the Grand View Memorial Park (Garden of Devotion) in Glendale, CA.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Chill Wills.
Johnnie Lee Wills
(Deceased)
In 1942, World War II brought the Tulsa era of the Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys to a temporary end, as a number of the guys went into the service, including Bob.Johnnie Lee Wills kept the radio show going during those years, and wound up keeping that daily noon broadcast on the air for 16 more years -- until 1958. Johnnie Lee had his own swing band by that time based right there in Tulsa, though members of his band and Playboys often overlapped, as players would float back and forth between them. Whenever Bob was in town, he'd join his brother on the air.
Bob had actually set up Johnnie Lee's band for him, just as he would do for brothers Billy Jack and Luke. All the Wills brothers were musically talented, and all were Playboys at various times, but Bob was the clear business leader behind every offspring group.
Due to the influence of the Wills brothers-- Bob, Johnnie Lee, Luke and Billy Mack Wills --the Oklahoma legislature selected "Faded Love" as the state's official Western swing song and the fiddle as the official state musical instrument.
John T. Wills
John T. Wills is the son of the late western swing song writer and band leader, Johnnie Lee Wills. John T.'s uncles were Bob, Luke, and Billy Jack Wills.
John T. Wills and his band "The Sons Of Swing" operate out of Tulsa, OK. They continue the tradition of making, playing, and performing great western swing songs, both old and new. The current members of the band are John T. Wills ( Fiddle/Vocals), Steve Bagby (Steel Guitar), Mike "Hood" Bennett (Trumpet), Mike Chittom (Tenor Banjo), Jon Cummins (Bass), Shelby Eicher (Fiddle), Steve "Hambone" Ham (Trombone), Amos Hedrick, Jr. (Fiddle), Bob Kiser (Guitar), Doug Simpson (Guitar), Gary Sullivan (Drums), and Tom Tripplehorn (Piano).
Luke Wills
(Deceased)
Luke Wills, musician, was born Luther J. Wills on Sept. 20, 1920 in Memphis, Texas. He was a brother to Bob Wills and Johnnie Lee Wills.
He joined brother Johnnie Lee Wills' band, "The Rhythmaires," in 1938. Then he had his own Western swing band, "The Rhythm Busters," from 1946 to 1948. He also played, off and on, with brother Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys until the group disbanded in 1964.
He may be best remembered for his vocal on the Texas Playboys recording of "Little Star of Heaven".
Luke Wills died on Oct. 22, 2000. He and his wife had lived in Las Vegas, NV for some years before his death.
Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson starred with Jackie Chan in the 2000 release movie, "Shanghai Noon" (a play on the classic cowboy movie, "High Noon").
Steve Wilson
Steve Wilson was an Army combat correspondent and photographer in Vietnam, and he worked in Tokyo as editor of the 4th Infantry Division newspaper. From 1973 to 2000, he was director of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton,OK., where he edited the Great Plains Journal.
Steve Wilson has written articles for Saga, Argosy and many other magazines. He is the author of Wichita Falls (Donning), Thirteen (St. Martin, 1984; Ballentine, 1985), and Oklahoma Treasures and Treasure Tales (OU Press, 1976).
Terry Wilson
(Deceased)
Terry Wilson, stunt man and actor, was born on Sept. 3, 1923 in Huntington Park, CA. He died on March 30, 1999 in Canoga Park, CA.
Terry Wilson started his movie career as a stunt man. He appeared (sometimes only as a double for a star and sometimes both as a stunt man and an actor) in Montana Belle (1952), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), The Last Frontier (1955), Pillars of the Sky (1956), The Last Hunt (1956), The Plainsman (1966), The War Wagon (1967, as Sheriff Strike), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1969), Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), Westword (1973) and in One Little Indian (1973).
His is perhaps best-known for his role as "Bill Hawks" on the Wagon Train TV show in 1957. He also made guest appearances in The Virginian, Gunsmoke, and The Lone Ranger.
Whip Wilson
(Deceased)
Whip Wilson was born Roland Charles Meyers on June 16. 1911, in Granite, Illinois.Meyers was a singer, by trade, before Hollywood came calling. An executive at Monogram Studio thought that Meyers looked a lot like the recently deceased cowboy star Buck Jones, only younger. So he singed Meyers to a movie contract. And though he occasionally sang in a movie, Whip Wilson is not counted as one of the true "singing cowboys".
The Studio put Meyers in a 1948 Jimmy Wakely film called, "Silver Trails." Then he got his own Western series as "Whip Wilson," a deliberate attempt to combine the strengths of Buck Jones and Lash LaRue. And they added Andy Clyde as his sidekick.
Whip Wilson and his comic pal Andy Clyde in the
1951 Western movie, "Abilene Trail".
As "Whip Wilson," Meyers starred in 22 B-western features. And he made more pictures than Lash LaRue, Sunset Carson, Monte Hale, Rex Allen or Eddie Dean. He did work in one more movie when he was hired to do the whip scenes in the Burt Lancaster film, "The Kentuckian".
Whip Wilson died of a heart attack on October 22, 1964. He was 53 years old.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
and today and forever.
--- Bible: Hebrews 13:8
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
