Billy Jack Wills

Billy Jack Wills – Cadillac In Model ‘A’

Bear Family Records BCD17644
Kentucky Mean Paradise – There’s Good Rockin’ Tonight – Crazy Man Crazy – Cadillac In Model ‘A’ – Out Of Gas – Hey Lula (Hey Lu-La) – Air Mail Special – For You My Love – All She Wants To Do Is Rock – Kissin’ Bug Boogie – Roped And Tied – C-Jam Blues – Sweet Georgia Brown – Water Baby Boogie – I Don’t Know – Sugar Blues – Bottle Baby Boogie – Milk Cow Blues – Jelly Roll Blues – Troubles (Those Lonesome Kind) – Woodchopper’s Ball – Rock-A-Bye Baby Blues – She’s A Quarter Horse Type (Of A Gal) – Lonesome Hearted Blues – The Dipsy Doodle – Tobacco Chewing Boogie – Mr. Cotton Picker – Hey, Mr. Mailman – Teardrops From My Eyes – Cadillac In Model ‘A’ – My Shoes Keep Walkin’ Back To You

It is not easy growing up in the shadow of a figure as imposing, even legendary, as that of Bob Wills. However, in addition to playing with their older brother, his three brothers, Luke, Johnny Lee, and Billy Jack, each had a career leading their own orchestras.
Billy Jack, the youngest and the subject of this column, studied in Johnny Lee’s orchestra before joining the Texas Playboys. In 1950, Bob Wills moved his base of operations to Oklahoma City, leaving Billy Jack, who remained at Wills Point in Sacramento, a chance. With the help of mandolinist Tiny Moore, who chose not to follow Bob Wills, he formed his own group, Billy Jack Wills and His Western Swing Band.
Apart from the constraints linked to the post-war context, which led Bob Wills to reduce the size of his orchestra, his music has evolved little or not at all. He still practiced his highly entertaining mixture of popular songs, traditional jazz, blues, and country music. But while his older brother draws his inspiration from the primitive blues and jazz of the 1920s and 1930s, Billie Jack, who was twenty years younger than his elder, was more in tune with the times.
Around a small combo (drums, mandolin, steel guitar, guitar, double bass, trumpet, and sometimes piano and violin), he developed the Western Swing equivalent of the Rhythm’n’Blues and Jump Blues combos of the moment, borrowing along the way tunes from the repertoire of Ruth Brown’s (Teardrops From My Eyes), Larry Darnell (For You My Love), Wynonie Harris (All She Wants To Do Is Rock) or Roy Brown (There’s A Good Rockin’ Tonight). Billy Jack’s very bluesy singing clearly leaned more towards these last two singers than Jack Teagarden and Emmett Miller, if you want to compare it with the great Tommy Duncan, singer of the Texas Playboys. One can even find elements of Be Bop emerging at times, particularly on the hot instrumentals (C-Jam Blues, Air Mail Special), which see the musicians particularly unleashed and supported by a powerful and aggressive rhythm.
The line-up changes depending on the recordings (refer to the very complete booklet for detailed information). Still, the orchestra’s heart lies in the steel guitar/mandolin arrangements of the excellent pair formed by Vance Terry (replacing Tommy Varner, who got drafted to Korea in 1951) and Tiny Moore, modeled on the horn arrangements of small African-American groups. The exuberant trumpet completes the whole.
The result is unstoppable and is sometimes very close to the nascent Rock’nRoll and to Bill Haley in particular, from whom they cover Crazy Man Crazy.
Unfortunately, in 1954, Bob Wills returned to Sacramento and absorbed Billy Jack’s band. Under the haphazard control of an aging Bob Wills, the group lost its energy and audacity. Vance Terry resumed his studies and then joined Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees. Tiny Moore later played alongside Merle Haggard. One wonders how the group would have evolved under the tutelage of Billy Jack at a time when Rock’n’Roll was taking off.
We cannot recommend enough the purchase of this record, which complements the two Billy Jack Wills CDs released at the end of the 1990s.