One of my unsuspected Super Powers is that I can dance. Real dancing, too, not just shaking around like you're having a seizure: Foxtrot, Cha-Cha, Swing.Nobody filled a dance hall like Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, back in the 1940s. Benny Goodman didn't fill a hall like Wills did. Dad told me he saw Wills play in Fredonia Kansas, at what must have been a dance hall; Dad would have been in College in the late 1940s, and was a bit of a party man back then. So was Wills, who was a hard drinking man - to the point that he missed shows. By the 1950s, his career was on the slide. By 1960, it was over.
But his influence wasn't. Chuck Berry said his song Maybellene was modeled on Wills' Ida Red. Merle Haggard recorded a tribute album, and even played on Wills' final album, the reunion with the Texas Playboys during wich the aging Wills suffered a stroke during recording. Willie Nelson is also a big fan, as is George Straight, both of whom perform his songs. Carrie Underwood performed this song - San Antonio Rose - at the Grammys, but that's really not the right venue. It needs to be played in a dance hall, packed with people enjoying western swing.
It's said that this singalong video used to be shown in Movie Theaters, between the double features. Nowadays you can hear it from bands like Asleep At The Wheel, here performing it with Dwight Yokum.
Makes me tap my toes, right there.
You know. I am beginning to suspect your an old redneck cowboy with a peacup truck and gunrack with your thurty-thurty in it!!! Oh yeah and a Colt SAA on your hip!!
ReplyDeleteAh, Borepatch, this song got me my current husband. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe Farmer's Daughter, which was Wills's usual venue when he was here in town, is now the site of an evangelical church. Makes me sad every time I go past it.
I'm with you on this one pard!
ReplyDeleteSabra; Your "current" husband? Are you expecting more in the future? ;)
ReplyDeleteBP, I have the Merle Haggard tribute album on CD and MP3. It's very, very, good.
And Bob Wills is still the King.
Maddmedic, I have a pick up truck and a 30-30, but alas there are no truck gun racks allowed here in the People's Socialist Republic of Massachusetts. If they were, it would be in it.
Er, no, TOTWTYTR, just trying to clearly delineate between him and the twerp who thought Asleep at the Wheel's covers of all those songs were the originals. ;-)
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