Bob Wills - San Antonio Rose (Bonus Dvd)

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Free Music Notes for San Antonio Rose (Bonus Dvd)

Free Music Review: Classic Early Recordings of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys
Hit: 5 Stars

For those unfamiliar with Wills, he was a Texas-born fiddler who combined Texas fiddle tunes, cowboy songs, jazz and blues to create a musical form that we now call Western Swing. Wills' Texas Playboys and one-time bandmate Milton Brown & his Musical Brownies were the two groundbreaking groups in this genre, and in the mid-1930's both groups began to perform and record in this exciting and original style. Brown died in 1936, but Wills' career lasted into the '70's, filling dancefloors throughout the Southwest and California, and influencing scores of younger musicians, including Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Asleep At the Wheel and Doug Sahm.

Although often categorized as country music, Western Swing only share instrumentation with country. More accurately, its swing-style jazz and pop, played by a group that heavily featured fiddles, steel guitar and occasionally horns. These were dancebands, the Texas equivalent of the big bands that were popular in the '30's and '40's. This music was wildly popular in Texas and Oklahoma and, after Depression and World War II migration, in California as well.

Wills made his first recordings in 1929, but his recording career began in earnest in the mid-'30's, when he was signed to the predecessor of Columbia Records. He recorded for the company extensively fir the next dozen years, and all of those recordings are included in this beautiful package. To be truthful, there is some filler here; like many bands of the time, Wills recorded his share of mediocre pop tunes. But most of these recordings are brilliant, a balance of Wills' background as a fiddler who performed for ranch dances and the other musical forms he loved so much.

Wills himself played "lead fiddle", but he deferred to more jazz-oriented fiddle players in his group for the solo work. The Texas Playboys had some tremendous musicians in their ranks, such as steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe, pianist Al Stricklin and fiddler Jesse Ashlock. All are in their prime here.

For some reason, Sony Music and its predecessors have re-released only a small portion of Wills' work from this golden era, and even less has been reissued on CD. What has been reissued has often suffered from substandard sound. Going from famine to feast, Bear Family now makes it all available, plus a few radio performances and a DVD of a Wills film (He and his band appeared in numerous Westerns in the early to mid '40's). This is much more Bob Wills than the casual fan will want. Still, this is some of the greatest music of the last century, and completists will want "San Antonio Rose" in their collection. As one would expect from Bear Family, the sound on these CD's is excellent. The collection includes an excellent hardcover book which includes an informative and thoughtful essay, session notes and discography, as well as a stunning collection of photos, including some this long-time fan has never seen before. I can not imagine how this set could be any better than it is.

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