'King of Western Swing' Bob Wills still rules in Oklahoma ahead of Western Heritage Awards
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Bob Wills was born in Texas, grew up in the cotton fields and ranch lands of the Lone Star State and fronted the band now famously known as the Texas Playboys.
But the "King of Western Swing" likely never would have claimed his crown had he not crossed the Red River into Oklahoma.
"Oklahoma has always been considered his glory years. That's where he was just on fire with ideas. ... So, I think it was always home for him; in fact, he's buried in Tulsa. Even though they were living in Fort Worth, we brought him back here," his daughter, Carolyn Wills, told The Oklahoman during a March interview in Oklahoma City.
It's fitting, then, that Wills (1905-1975) will be posthumously inducted April 15 into the Hall of Great Western Performers at OKC's National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
The famed fiddler, bandleader and singer-songwriter will be among the honorees at the museum's 62nd Western Heritage Awards, a star-studded event that annually lauds people who have made significant contributions to the history and culture of the American West, along with the year's top releases in Western literature, music, television and films.
"Yes, his music was great. Great art, I think, survives, and so I'm not too worried about that. But his story, it's just phenomenal. ... What a life," Carolyn Wills said, becoming emotional during the recording of an Oklahoma Historical Society podcast about her father.
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Who will be honored at this year's Western Heritage Awards?
Along with Wills, Emmy-nominated actor Lou Diamond Phillips ("Longmire," "Stand and Deliver," "La Bamba") also will be ushered into the Hall of Great Western Performers during the April 15 ceremony. Cowboy poet Red Steagall will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Oklahoma businessman Robert A. "Bob" Funk Sr. and the late Texas rancher Daniel Webster “80 John” Wallace (1860-1939) will be inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners.
Colorado beer mogul Pete Coors will become just the third recipient — after Phillip Anschutz and Foster Friess — of the Western Visionary Award, a rare honor bestowed on a person who has made "a national impact on preserving Western heritage and Western ideals."
Champion horse trainer Bobby Ingersoll will garner the 2023 Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award, an annual prize named in honor of the National Cowboy Museum's founder.
Plus, the television series "Dark Winds," the documentary "The Long Rider" and the song "Blues for 66," by Grammy-nominated father-and-son musicians Michael Martin Murphey and Ryan Murphey, will be among the titles honored at this year's Western Heritage Awards.
Who is Bob Wills and why does he have a lasting Oklahoma legacy?
Along with his induction into the Hall of Great Western Performers, Wills was honored earlier this year in OKC when the Oklahoma Arts Council and Oklahoma Historical Society partnered to revive Bob Wills Day at the state Capitol. Once a long-running celebration of Wills' life and legacy, the event returned in March after a hiatus of almost a decade due to the Capitol Restoration Project and the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Bob Wills was an iconic musician. He was someone who did something that had not ever been done before, by mixing multiple different musical styles and creating the genre that we call Western swing. Everything from ragtime to jazz to what they called back then hillbilly music to big band music, he put it all together into a style that hadn't really been seen before," said Oklahoma Historical Society Executive Director Trait Thompson.
Born March 6, 1905, near Kosse, Texas, James Robert Wills was the oldest of nine siblings in a family that survived on cotton farming and musical prowess. Mostly raised near Turkey, Texas, he came from a line of champion fiddlers.
In 1929, he moved to Fort Worth and originated the legendary band the Light Crust Doughboys, gaining popularity while working for his sponsor and nemesis, "Pappy" Lee O’Daniel.
"They were actually a promotional band for a flour company ... and because of some problems with their former boss, who was the flour company executive, they decided to come to Oklahoma," Thompson said. "They looked at where all their fan mail was coming from, and they noticed a lot of it came from Oklahoma."
The Texan and his bandmates originally moved to OKC intending to perform on radio station WKY, but in an effort to pull Wills back into his fold, O'Daniel thwarted those plans.
So, they headed to Tulsa instead.
In 1934, Tulsa radio station KVOO became home to Bob Wills and his new band, the Texas Playboys. On New Year’s night 1935, Wills and His Texas Playboys debuted at Cain’s Ballroom, and the venue quickly became known as “The House that Bob Built.”
"KVOO had a very strong signal — 25,000 watts and later 50,000 watts — that could broadcast almost all over the Southwest United States and in other parts as well. So, that's what really put them on the map, and they became these national superstars," Thompson said.
What Bob Wills songs have become beloved standards?
During his five-decade career, Wills wrote and/or recorded several songs that have become beloved standards, including "Take Me Back to Tulsa," “Faded Love” and “San Antonio Rose.” Wills and his cohorts also toured consistently throughout the 1930s, '40s and '50s and appeared in nearly 20 Western films.
In the early ‘60s, Wills lived and worked in Las Vegas, headlining the Golden Nugget. The bandleader, entrepreneur and musician died May 13, 1975, at age 70.
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"He even came back to Cain's Ballroom for a short stint in the 1950s. But he made his mark in Oklahoma," Thompson said, noting that Wills is buried in Tulsa's Memorial Park Cemetery.
Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2001. He posthumously received the National Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2007.
How does Bob Wills continue to be memorialized in Oklahoma?
Along with Wills' induction into the OKC-based Hall of Great Western Performers, the Oklahoma Historical Society's under-construction OKPOP Museum in Tulsa, once complete, will exhibit items from its vast Wills collection, which includes music, photographs, clothing, cigars and fiddles.
Situated across the street from Cain's Ballroom, which still has a sign declaring it the "Home of Bob Wills" displayed above its iconic stage, OKCPOP even has a place of honor on its ground floor prepared for Wills' 1948 tour bus.
"I can't wait. ... I'm just so excited to see it right there across from Cain's," said Carolyn Wills, who now lives in Texas after years of residing in Seattle.
"It feels right to have it here in Oklahoma."
During Bob Wills Day at the Sooner State Capitol, which marked what would have been his 118th birthday on March 6, Carolyn Wills was on hand when her father was honored on the floor of the state Senate and House of Representatives and heard Oklahoma musicians Jana Jae, Cowboy Jim Garling, Kyle Dillingham and Jay Steagall & The Part-Timers featuring Danny Steagall performing the "King of Western Swing's" songs.
"I'm very thankful when I hear other people playing the music. You know right away when it's a Bob Wills song ... maybe because they're so human. They're stories that we all relate to — or they're funny," Carolyn Wills said.
"He was a very generous man. ... He, throughout his whole life, took care of brothers and sisters, mother and father. I think, for him, connection was his fuel: He couldn't have been Bob Wills without it, and it extended to the band, the audience and to family."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Museum to honor 'King of Western Swing' Bob Wills, Lou Diamond Phillips
