Bob Wills

James Robert Wills was born on March 6, 1905 on a farm near Kosse, Texas. His father was a champion fiddler, and promised to make his son one too. By the time Bob was 10, he was playing guitar and mandolin accompanying his father.

Bob left home at age 16 and suported himself with jobs doing anything, including picking cotton, but his fiddle never left his side. He slowly built a band, The Light Crust Doughboys, and by 1931, they began to find success. However, by the next year, a bitter rift developed between Bob and his sponsor, W. Lee O'Daniel (who eventually became governor), and drove Bob out of Texas and into Tulsa.

In Tulsa, Bob began building a new band, The Texas Playboys, and began playing with new sounds that developed into what was to be known as "Texas Swing". Usually the vocals were handled by Tommy Duncan, with cigar chomping Bob adding what became his trademark "hollers". The Texas Playboys combined jazz and stringband elements to country music, which resulted in highly danceable hits such as "Take Me Back To Tulsa", "Right Or Wrong", "Bubbles In My Beer" and the classic, "San Antonio Rose".

Bob became a larger than life character, married and divorced 5 times between 1935 and 1942. The Texas Playboys took on many different forms through the years, sometimes being as large as 22 musicians and hired over 600 different musicians over those years. He introduced more than 500 songs, could play 3600 songs, sold more than 20 million records and even made a few movies.

In 1968 when Bob's name was announced as the newest member of the Hall of Fame, he never expected to win thinking he was the longshot, and was backstage hanging out with pals. When they finally got him to the stage he had the following words: "I don't usually take my hat off to nobody. But I sure do to you folks."

Bob Wills died after a series of strokes on May 13, 1975 in Ft. Worth, Texas.