"Until Hank Williams came along, it was just Bob Willis," says Willie Nelson. "He was it." And indeed he was, especially for the thousands in the Southwest who knew and loved the King of Western Swing. The colorful band leader-composer-fiddler from Turkey, Texas, lassoed the emotions of country-and-western fans nationwide. In the early 1940s, his records outsold those of any other recording artist. He was voted not only into the Country Music Hall of Fame but also into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, the only performer other than Gene Autry to be so honored. 

Affectionately written by a Texan who responded to the legendary fiddler's style, San Antonio Rose captures Wills's magnetism and the musical excitement he created. Charles R. Townsend traces Wills's dynamic life from his birth into a family of frontier fiddlers through his career and stardom and on to the poignant last recording session in 1973 and his death two years later. Townsend shows how Wills brought black and white music together and examines the tremendous impact he had on both popular and country music through the more than 550 selections he recorded and the forty years he and his Texas Playboys performed in dance halls and on radio.

Preface   xi
1. Cotton Fields and Cotton Camps   1
2. Down between the Rivers   16
3. "I Slurred My Fiddle . . .to Play the Blues"   36
4. Frontier Folk Music Moves to Town   44
5. Western Jazz   53
6. Light Crust Doughboys and Texas Playboys   68
7. The Spread of Western Jazz   88
8. Music out of a Straitjacket   98
9. "You Hired Bob Wills, Didn't You?"   112
10. Here Comes de Judge   121
11. "The Ballad of 'Seabiscuit' McAuliffe"   132
12. The Glory Years and the most Versatile Band in America   143
13. Faded Loves   156
14. "San Antonio Rose," Western Swing, and Some of the Finest Jazzmen You've Ever Heard   190
15. The Silver Screen and Music on the West Coast   206
16. That Certain Woman: Betty and the Summer of '42   215
17. "This Is the Army, Mr. Wills"   225
18. "Take Me Back to Tulsa"   235
19. Just Lookin' for a Home   261
20. "His Body Wore Out before His Desire"   277
21. Country Music Hall of Fame   283
22. More Tributes to a Pioneer Musician   295
23. A Product of the Jazz Age   310
24. Twilight Falls   316
Essay on Sources   325
The Bob Wills Recordings: A Comprehensive Discography   Bob Pinson   337
A Preliminary Bob Wills Filmusicography   Bob Pinson   375
Index   377