Bob Wills and The Bob Wills & Johnnie Lee Wills Photograph Collection
In this week’s episode of our This Week in the West podcast (you can listen above), we cover the life of music legend Bob Wills.
In the 1930s, something new was beaming out of Tulsa’s KVOO radio station.
It wasn’t exactly country, jazz, or blues. You could hear steel guitar, sure, but also hints of Dixieland, a little ragtime, and even a touch of polka. It was something different — lively, danceable, and full of life. It was called Western Swing, and Bob Wills and his band, the Texas Playboys, were bringing it to a growing audience right in the heart of the Great Depression.
This week, on the 50th anniversary of his death on May 13, 1975, we remember Wills — a musical innovator and a giant of American sound.
Wills not only left a Hall of Fame career of musical innovation, he also has a collection of photographs at the Dickinson Research Center here at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
This collection, a sample of which can be seen below, contains photographs of Johnnie Lee Wills, Bob Wills, their bands, and other family members. The photographs include performances in a variety of cities, including, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Fresno, California, and others.
Band on stage at Cain’s
Ca. 1940
Photographic print
black and white
1989.045.071
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were regular entertainers at Cain’s Ballroom, the now legendary music venue in Tulsa. Wills and his group also had a regular radio home, performing on Tulsa’s KVOO.
Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys tour cars
Ca. 1940
Photographic print
black and white
1989.045.044
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys toured the country by bus and car as they built their audience and careers in the 1930s and 1940s.
Bob Wills performance
Photographer: Walter Madson
Ca. 1939
Photographic print
black and white
1989.045.046
Part of the growth of the popularity of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys was their daily show on KVOO, a radio station out of Tulsa. As audiences heard them more often, their new “Western swing” sound gained new fans and sold more records.
Bob Wills and band Texas Playboys posing beside bus
Photographer: King’s Camera Center
Ca. 1950 (approximate)
Photographic print
black and white
1989.045.048
The size of the Texas Playboys band meant the group often had to take a bus from location to location while on tour. The group poses in front of their custom-designed bus around 1950 in this photo, as they prepared to hit the road. The group and Bob Wills would hit rocky times in the 1950s after sustained success the decades before.
