NRR Project: “New San Antonio Rose”
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys
Recorded April 16, 1940
2:37
Is there a happier sound to be heard than this? The jaunty, bouncy sound of fiddler and bandleader Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys marks the birth of the unusual musical hybrid known as Western swing.
Wills was born in 1905 in Texas, the son of a champion fiddler. Growing up, he absorbed all kinds of American musical influences – country and Western, but also blues, jazz, and folk. He worked as a barber and played after hours. Gradually he built up his skills as a fiddler, a vocalist, a joke-cracking emcee, and even an enthusiastic on-stage dancer. He developed the habit of calling out during songs and making comments as he played, leading to an instantly identifiable style.
When he put his own band together, it originally consisted of the usual assortment of Western instruments, but he gradually began to add instruments such as trumpet, saxophone, drums, and slide guitar (the last played by the phenomenal Leon McAuliffe). Arrangements His music moved into tunes that got folks out on the dance floor. It was country, but country with a beat. Country that swung!
“San Antonio Rose” was originally recorded as an instrumental in 1938, and soon became the band’s signature tune. Wills and his compatriots concocted plaintive lyrics to go with the tune, and they re-recorded the tune with them on April 16, 1940. The new version shot to the top of the charts. The words of the song are belied by the warm, upbeat, propulsive music that accompanies it, with a full orchestral sound that’s intoxicating. No wonder Wills is referred to as the king of Western swing.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Stravinsky conducts The Rite of Spring.
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