Western Swing

One of the oddest, and yet most exciting and musically fertile, stylistic fusions to occur in American popular music was Western swing – a blend of hot jazz, big band, old-time country, cowboy songs, and blues that emerged as a distinct genre in Texas and Oklahoma in the 1930s and came into full maturity over the course of the following decade. 

Western swing has been largely overlooked in historical treatments of American popular music, in part because it’s still so hard to pigeonhole. The bands that played it dressed like cowboys but often had horn sections; they tended to be led by fiddlers, but their arrangements featured improvised solos that sounded a lot like big band jazz; they played traditional Appalachian old-time tunes that had their origins in the British Isles, but also Texas tunes that drew from German and Latin American melodic traditions. The music was White, but also Black; it was intensely American, but also more than a little bit Mexican. It was music deeply rooted in the rural Southwest, but refashioned to meet the demands of sophisticated urban audiences who wanted to dance to something that spoke to their country heritage while also packing a mighty sense of swing.

While regional bands like the East Texas Serenaders and Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys were important innovators, Western swing really came into its own with the Light Crust Doughboys, a band that formed in Saginaw, Texas in 1931 and – amazingly – is still active as a working band today (with different members, obviously). The Doughboys were important not only as major contributors to the music’s early development, but also as the launching pad for the careers of two other vitally important figures in Western swing: Milton Brown and the legendary Bob Wills, leader of the Texas Playboys. But during the music’s heyday, there were scores of bands that developed regional followings both in the core hotspots of north Texas and Oklahoma and in outlying areas of Arkansas and as far east as Louisiana. Some of the first recorded uses of electrically amplified steel and six-string guitars were on Western swing recordings – an innovation made necessary by the large, crowded, and noisy dancehalls in which these early bands played. 

Most of the early Western swing bands focused on live performance, and many made few if any formal recordings. Groups like Jimmy Revard’s Oklahoma Playboys, Adolph Hofner’s Texans, Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers, and the Tune Wranglers may have drawn big crowds in their prime, but virtually all of their work is now essentially lost to history – though some of it can still be found on labor-of-love compilations put together by diehard Western swing fans who have trawled patiently through collections of old 78 rpm shellac records to find obscure Western swing gems.

Today, Bob Wills remains the most recognizable name in Western swing – but that’s primarily because the career of Milton Brown and his band the Musical Brownies, who were for a time the more popular group, was cut tragically short by his death in a car accident in 1936. (Wills would later twice marry and twice divorce Brown’s widow.) During the ensuing years, Wills and his Texas Playboys went on to become international stars and the most popular exponents of Western swing. The combination of Wills’ virtuosic fiddling, the jazzy tightness of the Playboys’ horn section, and his playful call-and-response vocalisms alongside singer Tommy Duncan (punctuated by Wills’ signature falsetto “aa-haaaaaaaa”s) basically came to define the sound of classic, midcentury Western swing. Wills was a natural performer, an enormous stage presence who had done minstrel shows and musical comedy earlier in his career while supporting himself primarily as a barber. An irrepressible talker onstage, he developed a signature approach to performance that included not only between-song patter but also commentary during songs – often in the form of wordless vocalese, though he was also more than willing to interrupt and talk over his singers, pitching in vocal harmonies from time to time as well.

Wills was more than just a talented and charismatic showman, though. He was a tremendously gifted bandleader, and his success enabled him to attract major talent, most notably including singer Duncan, fiddler and electric mandolinist Tiny Moore, and steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe. And he was an excellent composer as well: his original tunes “San Antonio Rose” and “Faded Love” are now American jazz-country standards – while “Steel Guitar Rag,” an instrumental written by McAuliffe during his time with the Texas Playboys, is another.

Western swing hit hard times during World War II, when a 30% federal excise tax was levied on music venues (characterized as “cabarets”) that both served food and drink and allowed dancing. Some such venues tried to get around the tax by limiting its programming to performers who lip-synched and mimed along to prerecorded music; others featured live instrumental performances but did not permit their patrons to dance to them. This new era of nightlife regulation helped to hasten the evolution of jazz from dance music to concert music, ushering in the development of bebop (highly virtuosic, uptempo, small-group jazz intended for listening and virtually impossible to dance to) and leading quickly to the demise of big-band music generally. Western swing, which by this point had evolved into essentially a big-band genre, was collateral damage – although for another decade or so it continued to be popular as recorded music. 

Western swing has never really died, however. Since World War II, Western swing has maintained a solid, if commercially modest, niche position in the musical marketplace. In the mid-1950s (after the cabaret tax was lifted), artists like Spade Cooley could still command large crowds, and the music’s enduring influence can be felt in the development of rockabilly music in the 1950s and in the Bakersfield Sound that emerged in Southern California not much later. In fact, Western swing was a formative influence on rock’n’roll generally: guitarist and bandleader Bill Haley, whose groundbreaking 1954 single “Rock Around the Clock” was one of the first commercially successful rock’n’roll recordings, actually got his start as a yodeling cowboy singer – and the band that came to be called Bill Haley & His Comets was originally called Bill Haley’s Four Aces of Western Swing. 

Country music made since the 1960s often contains strong hints of Western swing – you can hear it in the work of artists like Wynn Stewart, Dwight Yoakam and, especially, Merle Haggard (who recorded an album of Bob Wills covers titled A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddler in the World). Today you hear it in the music of California rockabilly artists like Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys and of the minimalist, drumless trio the Hot Club of Cowtown. And most of all, you’ll hear it in the work of revivalists Asleep at the Wheel, who have been playing unashamedly straight-ahead, traditional Western swing (with significant commercial success) since 1970, as well as the similarly oriented (and more assertively named) Western Swing Authority. As recently as 2024, the town of Tehachapi, California hosted a festival dubbed the Western Swing Out, one that featured no fewer than 18 bands working in Western swing and adjacent styles. It’s a safe bet that Western swing is here to stay, though it seems unlikely ever to fully regain its prewar preeminence.

Rick Anderson

A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (Or, My Salute to Bob Wills)

Merle Haggard
A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (Or, My Salute to Bob Wills) cover

Merle Haggard, one of the foremost exponents of the Bakersfield sound, was deeply influenced by Western swing – and particularly by its most famous ambassador, Bob Wills (the “best damn fiddle player” of the album title). For this album Haggard enriches his own band with the talents of Wills alumni Johnny Gimble (fiddle) and Tiny Moore (electric mandolin), and sings in a style that marries his own whiskey-toned voice to the phrasing of legendary Wills singer Tommy Duncan to create a warm and hard-swinging tribute that is hard to resist.

Asleep at the Wheel

Asleep at the Wheel cover

Asleep at the Wheel’s self-titled second album finds them continuing to develop what would become their stock in trade: unapologetic Western swing revivalism. But there’s also some subtle updating happening here – or maybe less than subtle, at least in the case of the disco string section on “You and Me Instead.” For the most part, though, this is hard-swinging, honky-tonking, old-school midcentury country jazz buffed to a high 1970s sheen.

The Western Swing Authority

Western Swing Authority
The Western Swing Authority cover

For country music fans, it can be easy to forget that Canada has a West too – a huge one, actually – and a long and deep tradition of cowboy music. And those northerners are by no means immune to the charms of more American Southwest-specific sounds, as this Canadian Western swing revival band makes clear. On their debut album, The Western Swing Authority bring the traditional sounds of their chosen genre right up into the 21st century, with slick and rich production and virtuosic picking – but the repertoire focuses on standards liked “Faded Love” and “Stay All Night” (a.k.a. “Stay a Little Longer”). Great stuff.

Obsessed With The West

Asleep at the Wheel, Brennen Leigh
Obsessed With The West cover

On the opening track of this album, singer-songwriter Brennen Leigh makes her intentions clear: “If Tommy Duncan’s Voice Was Booze” is an unambiguous love letter to the halcyon days of 1940s Western swing, when Duncan was lead singer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. She has Asleep at the Wheel backing her up on this album, so the rest of the program follows suit, giving a slyly modern lyrical edge to the sounds of classic Texas cowboy jazz.

Hillbilly Bop, Boogie & The Honky Tonk Blues Vol. Two, 1951-1953

Various Artists
Hillbilly Bop, Boogie & The Honky Tonk Blues Vol. Two, 1951-1953 cover

By the early 1950s Western swing and its related country subgenres had lost much of their hold on the rural dancehall and were beginning to morph into a style that would come to be called rockabilly. On this collection of early-1950s tracks, listen to how close Louie Innis and the String Dusters sound to Bill Haley and His Comets (a former Western swing combo that would soon have the first big rock’n’roll radio hit with their faintly but unmistakably swing-inflected “Rock Around the Clock”). Note also how the massed fiddles of Jack Rowe and His Wichita Mountain Boys fail to disguise the fact that “Bomb Bosh Boogie” is straight-up hillbilly R&B, and how the electric guitars on “I’ve Lived a Lot in My Time” by Jack Rhodes & His Lone Star Buddies evoke Bob Wills and Hank Williams in equal measure. This collection is a very fine window on a lost moment in American pop music history.

Kings of Western Swing

Various Artists
Kings of Western Swing cover

If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s really more to Western swing than Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (and, if you’re very hip to the contemporary cowboy jive, Asleep at the Wheel), your answer is right here on this 18-track compilation. OK, yes, it does open with a pretty obvious selection: Will and his boys doing “Take Me Back to Tulsa.” But it quickly dives into the deep cuts: the Crystal Springs Ramblers doing a saxophone-heavy “Fort Worth Stomp,” the Saddle Tramps with “Hot As I Am,” Jerry Irby and His Texas Ranchers singing the regretful “Nails in My Coffin,” etc. A reasonable person might ask whether all of these artists really qualify as “kings” of Western swing, but this album is a trove of obscure musical treasures.

Big Show Band Revue, Vol. 1

Light Crust Doughboys
Big Show Band Revue, Vol. 1 cover

Founded in 1931 in Saginaw, Texas, the Light Crust Doughboys are the only band from that era still performing 90(!) years later. Of course there are no original members left and the band’s personnel have turned over many times since then (and there was that 20-year-or-so hiatus between the 1940s and the 1960s), but the musicians still riding for the Light Crust brand are just as dedicated to Western swing’s unique blend of jazzy sophistication and down-home cowboy culture as their predecessors were. On this 2020 release the sound is a lot glossier than that of mid-century Western swing recordings, which makes it interesting in itself.

Hillbilly Classics

Various Artists
Hillbilly Classics cover

This generous collection of early country music contains, nestled among deep cuts by familiar names like Tennessee Ernie Ford, the Carter Family, and the Delmore Brothers, some fine examples by much more obscure figures in the Western swing and cowboy boogie style: “Birmingham Bounce” by the legendary steel guitar virtuoso Leon McAuliffe and His Western Swing Band, the blues-based “49 Women” by Jerry Irby and His Texas Ranchers, “Who Puts the Cat Out When Papa’s Out of Town?” by Sam Nichols with The Melody Rangers, and more. Even Chet Atkins is here, playing a very swinging “Boogie Man Boogie” and demonstrating just how far into the country music mainstream Western swing sounds had penetrated by the late mid-century. But the biggest value proposition of this 73-track compilation comes from its exhumation of long-deleted recordings that might never have seen the light of day again otherwise.

Legends of Country Music

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
Legends of Country Music cover

This four-disc set offers an outstanding overview of the career of Western swing legend Bob Wills and his band, the Texas Playboys. You hear their sound in the early days, when the band was small and focused on guitar and fiddle, and you hear the band develop into a highly sophisticated, horn-heavy, honky-tonking, hard-swinging country jazz band that could heat up a dance floor more quickly and comprehensively than just about anyone else. The sound quality on this set is outstanding, and easily rivals that of the much more expensive Bear Family box that is its most obvious competition.

Still the King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

Asleep at the Wheel
Still the King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys cover

You may think that a Bob Wills tribute by Asleep at the Wheel is an exercise in redundancy – the band’s long tenure (they were founded in 1970) has been something of a tribute to Wills and the musical style of which he was an architect in the 1930s and a leading exponent for decades to follow. Redundant or not, though, this album is a pure delight: featuring guest appearances from artists as celebrated as Lyle Lovett, Brad Paisley, and Merle Haggard, this collection of new performances of old Western Swing classics is as fun an introduction to the genre as you’ll find.

Hillbilly Boogie!

Various Artists
Hillbilly Boogie! cover

The intersection of jazz, blues, and country music that came to be called Western swing was hugely popular in Texas and Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s, and spawned scores of bands that are almost entirely forgotten today. If you’ve had about all the Bob Wills and Asleep at the Wheel you need for the moment and are looking for some more obscure examples of Western swing and adjacent styles, look no further than this 20-track compilation that pulls together relatively little-known fare from the likes of Johnny Bond, Curley Williams & His George Peach Pickers, and Paul Howard & His Cotton Pickers. There’s a contribution from Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys as well, and from Spade Cooley, and even tracks from Lefty Frizell and Little Jimmy Dickens, making this a nicely varied grab-bag of classic Western swing.

Shame on You

Spade Cooley
Shame on You cover

 When it comes to Western swing, high-profile names like Bob Wills, Milton Brown, and the Light Crust Doughboys tend to get all the attention, but there was another hotshot fiddler working the Texas and Oklahoma honky tonk circuit in a country big-band style as well: Spade Cooley. This album brings together some of his finest recordings, all of which were apparently previously unreleased until the intrepid Bloodshot Revival label brought them to light in 1995.

Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 1

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 1 cover

One of the best ways to introduce yourself to classic-era Western swing is with these mid-1940s recordings made by the iconic Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. The Tiffany Transcriptions were live sets of tunes recorded in the Tiffany Music Company studios in Oakland, California, and designed to be played in their entirety over the radio as stand-alone broadcast shows. Many of the original acetate discs have now been cleaned up, mastered, and made available online and in contemporary formats, and they find Wills and his band at the peak of their powers.