Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who played steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on a Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station, and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national popularity into the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke on the Water", "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step".
Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded with several publishers and companies, including Vocalion, Okeh, Columbia, and MGM, frequently moving. In 1950, he had two top ten hits, "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade. Throughout the 1950s, he struggled with poor health and tenuous finances, but continued to perform frequently despite the decline in popularity of his earlier music as rock and roll took over. Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys although Wills continued to perform solo.
The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills in 1968 and the Texas State Legislature honored him for his contribution to American music.[4] In 1972, Wills accepted a citation from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in Nashville. He was recording an album with fan Merle Haggard in 1973 when a stroke left him comatose until his death in 1975. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.
He was born near Kosse, Texas; his father was a fiddle player who along with his grandfather, taught the young Wills to play the fiddle and the mandolin. After several years of drifting, "Jim Rob," then in his 20s, attended barber school, got married, and moved first to Roy, New Mexico then to Turkey, Texas (now considered his home town) to be a barber. He alternated barbering and fiddling even when he moved to Fort Worth to pursue a career in music. It was there that while performing in a medicine show, where he learned comic timing and some of the famous "patter" he later delivered on his records, the show's owner gave him the nickname "Bob."
In Fort Worth, Wills met Herman Arnspinger and formed The Wills Fiddle Band. In 1930 Milton Brown joined the group as lead vocalist and brought a sense of innovation and experimentation to the band, now called the Light Crust Doughboys due to radio sponsorship by the makers of Light Crust Flour. Brown left the band in 1932 to form the Musical Brownies, the first true Western swing band. Brown added twin fiddles, tenor banjo and slap bass, pointing the music in the direction of swing, which they played on local radio and at dancehalls.
Wills remained with the Doughboys and replaced Brown with new singer Tommy Duncan in 1932. He found himself unnable to get along with future Texas Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, the authoritarian host of the Light Crust Doughboy radio show. O'Daniel had parlayed the show's popularity into growing power within Light Crust Flour's parent company, Burrus Mill and Elevator Company and wound up as General Manager, though he despised what he considered "hillbilly music." Wills and Duncan left the Doughboys in 1933 after Wills had missed one show too many due to his sporadic drinking.
After forming a new band, "The Playboys" and relocating to Waco, Wills found enough popularity there to decide on a bigger market. They left Waco in January of 1934 for Oklahoma City. Wills soon settled the renamed "Texas Playboys" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and began broadcasting noontime shows over the 50,000 watt KVOO radio station. Their 12:30-1:15 Monday-Friday broadcasts became a veritable institution in the region. Nearly all of the daily (except Sunday) shows originated from the stage of Cain's Ballroom. In addition, they played dances in the evenings, including regular ones at the ballroom on Thursdays and Saturdays. By 1935 Wills had added horn, reed players and drums to the Playboys. The addition of steel guitar whiz Leon McAuliffe in March, 1935 added not only a formidable instrumentalist but a second engaging vocalist. Wills himself largely sang blues and sentimental ballads.
Misery
Bob Wills Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Jukebox records don't play those wedding bells.
Lookin' at the world through the bottom of a glass,
All I see is a man who's fading fast.
Tonight I need that woman again.
What I'd give for my baby to just walk in.
Sit down beside me and say: "It's alright.
"Take me home and make sweet love to me tonight."
But here I am again, mixin' misery and gin.
Sittin' with all my friends and talkin' to myself.
I look like I'm havin' a good time but any fool can tell,
That this Honky Tonk Heaven really makes ya' feel like hell.
I light a lonely woman's cigarette,
We both start talkin' 'bout what we want to forget.
Her life story and mine are the same.
We both lost someone and only have ourselves to blame.
But here I am again, mixin' misery and gin.
Sittin' with all my friends and talkin' to myself.
I look like I'm havin' a good time but any fool can tell,
That this Honky Tonk Heaven really makes ya' feel like hell.
The song Misery by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys delves into the pain and despair that comes with drowning your sorrows in alcohol. The opening lines state that memories and drinks don't mix well and that the jukebox doesn't have any songs about happy weddings. The lyrics go on to describe the feeling of being at the bottom of a glass and seeing a fading man. The singer yearns for his woman to come back to him and make everything right again.
However, the reality is that he finds himself mixing misery with gin, surrounded by friends but still talking to himself. The Honky Tonk Heaven that he's in seems like a good time, but it only serves to make him feel worse. The singer finds a moment of connection with a woman who is also looking for an escape from the pain of her life. They talk about what they want to forget, but ultimately, they both have only themselves to blame for their situations.
Line by Line Meaning
Memories and drinks don't mix too well.
When I think about memories and try to drown them with drinks, I end up with a bad time.
Jukebox records don't play those wedding bells.
Listening to songs on a jukebox won't bring the happiness of a wedding.
Lookin' at the world through the bottom of a glass,
I'm viewing the world in a negative light due to my excessive drinking.
All I see is a man who's fading fast.
I see a man who's deteriorating quickly because of his destructive habits.
Tonight I need that woman again.
I require the comfort of my significant other tonight.
What I'd give for my baby to just walk in.
I would do anything for my lover to come to me now.
Sit down beside me and say: "It's alright.
If my lover comforts me with their words, then everything will be fine.
"Take me home and make sweet love to me tonight."
If my lover is with me tonight, then I want them to come home with me and show me affection.
But here I am again, mixin' misery and gin.
Despite my negative experiences with alcohol, I have returned to drink my sorrows away once again.
Sittin' with all my friends and talkin' to myself.
I'm surrounded by friends, but I'm struggling so much that it feels like I'm talking to myself.
I look like I'm havin' a good time but any fool can tell,
I may appear to be enjoying myself, but it's obvious to anyone that I'm not.
That this Honky Tonk Heaven really makes ya' feel like hell.
This place that was intended to be a paradise for honky tonk lovers only serves to worsen my state of mind.
I light a lonely woman's cigarette,
I offer to light the cigarette of a woman who is also feeling lonely in an attempt to find some common ground.
We both start talkin' 'bout what we want to forget.
We begin discussing things that we both have regrets about and wish we could erase from our memories.
Her life story and mine are the same.
The woman I'm talking with and I have similar experiences and struggles.
We both lost someone and only have ourselves to blame.
We have both experienced loss, and we feel responsible for our own role in these situations.
Lyrics © JOHNNY BOND PUBLICATIONS
Written by: BILLIE M. MOORE, BOB WILLS, TOMMY DUNCAN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind