Western Swing

Western swing pioneers The Light Crust Doughboys, featuring (l to r): Milton Brown, Durwood Brown, Truett Kinzey, Bob Wills, and Herman Arnspiger, 1931. Credit: Crossroads of Music Archive and Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Bob Wills was from Texas, born into a family with generations of skilled fiddle players. He was also influenced by the music his African-American friends sang in the cotton fields and later by Hispanic musicians in New Mexico. And he was influenced by “swing” music—an offshoot of jazz that was sweeping the nation in the 1930s.

So you’ve got fiddle tunes, the blues, and then you have the Mexican-American experience. He has a tune called “Spanish Two Step.” It encompasses the feeling of the Hispanic music of the day. So Bob took all of those things it and made it into what we call “Western Swing.” – Ray Benson

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, c. 1944.
Credit: OKPOP / Oklahoma Historical Society, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Wills’s Western swing included drums, bass, and a syncopated piano providing the pulse, just as they did in swing bands, and musicians were expected to improvise on their instrumental breaks, just as they did in jazz. But instead of saxophones, clarinets, and horns, this music featured the mainstays of a hillbilly band: fiddles and guitar.