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Bob Wills: Bands
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Tulsa is where Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys began to refine their sound. Wills added an 18 year-old electric steel guitarist called Leon McAuliffe, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section to the band\'s lineup. Soon, the Texas Playboys were the most popular band in Oklahoma and Texas. The band made their first record in 1935 for the American Recording Company, which would later become part of Columbia Records. At ARC, they were produced by Uncle Art Satherley, who would wind up as Wills\' producer for the next 12 years. The bandleader had his way and they cut a number of tracks which were released on a series of 78s.
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In 1933 Pappy and Bob came to an entirely un-amicable parting. Pappy did his best to prevent that young upstart from ever getting another job as a musician. Bob formed the nucleus of the band that became the Texas Playboys and went to WHOO. He was joined by Smokey Dacus on drums and a boyish-looking hellraiser of a singer who claimed he could play the piano but couldn't - Tommy Duncan. The new Bob Wills band, called simply 'The Playboys' at the time, got the Monday/Wednesday/Friday noon slot on WHOO.
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The Playboy rhythm would ultimately seep into other music with a powerful pulse: Chuck Berry's 'Maybelline' was simply an adaptation of the Wills version of 'Ida Red,' the traditional folk tune that Bob had set to a beat. But it was mostly a beat rooted in jazz. 'He couldn't play jazz, he just loved it. And he hired guys who could play it.' Johnny Gimble remembers the first time he sat in with the band as a 23-year-old fiddler. Johnny's greatest musical influence was jazz great Benny Goodman, who didn't even have a fiddle in his orchestra. A jazzy fiddle was just the right sound for the Playboys though. Eldon Shamblin, the electric guitarist who ... served as the band's manager, understood this when he hired Gimble in Bob's absence in 1949.
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