Addendum to Lex: With neither the mellow sound of Asleep at the Wheel nor the layers of George Jones or Alan Jackson, here’s another. But its an endless genre. Sometimes, of course, we might wonder at the lives of people guided by “what would Willy do.”
Music
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
Excellent short article about Bob Wills, with a bunch of songs. Check them out.
Good anecdote:
In Merle Haggard’s autobiography he writes of smacking his hot-blooded first ex-wife and throwing her out of his car after she insulted Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. When he goes back to pick her up, she’s defiantly telling onlookers that Haggard tore her dress trying to keep her in the car when she decided to bolt of her own accord.
Say what you will about mom and country but talking shit about Bob Wills clearly crossed a line for Haggard. She was walking on the fighting side of Hag. Later, an older, wiser, and hopefully less domestic violence-prone Haggard brags that his newest, bestest wife gets every day off on the right foot by putting on his beloved Bob Wills records as soon as he gets up in the morning. To Haggard, domestic hell was a wife with no damn respect for Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys, and domestic heaven was a woman who intuitively understood how important he was to him.
Hag was right. In my case, I married a woman who loves Bob Wills, and it has worked out OK. We had a western swing band at our wedding. As always, you can learn a lot and benefit a lot from the life, words, music and example of Merle Haggard. Loving Bob Wills is a pretty major item you want to check off before you get serious with a gal. With that squared away, a lot of the rest of it falls into place.
Mrs. Lex recently made me step away from the computer, which I did very grudgingly, and go see Asleep at the Wheel, who are Texas Swing and play a lot of Bob Wills Sons. I was wrong to resist. It was a good show.
The music lives on, and Bob Wills is still the king.