Del Reeves Looking at Billboards

We've arrived to our month of March 2010 for recycling my blog posts.

03-1-10... Johnnie Lee Wills joined his brother Bob in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1934, playing tenor banjo on KVOO radio, thus becoming one of the six original Texas Playboys... as in... Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. For the next eight years the band grew in number, and exploded in popularity nationwide, but the onset of WWII saw many members joining the armed forces.


Bob took off for California and started a new band in 1942, while Johnnie Lee Wills stayed in Tulsa, switched instruments to fiddle and changed the band's name to Johnnie Lee Wills and All the Boys. What didn't change was the style and quality of music. Swing, western-style, and for the next 25 years they played dances at the Cain's Ballroom and broadcast six days a week on KVOO, making theirs the longest-running live broadcast in the nation at the time. Here's a prime example of the western swing sound, driven by some very talented musicians. Coyote Blues



03-3-10... This song here's been a chart-topper many times over. First recorded by George Jones in 1955, it rose to #4 on Billboard and became his first top-ten single. Later that year came this version, a duet by Red Sovine and Webb Pierce. Released end of December, it reached #1 first part of 1956, but don't feel bad for George. He co-wrote it along with Darrel Edwards, and assuming they set themselves up for many years of collecting royalties, they've done quite well with it. In years since it's hit the charts for big names like Hank Locklin and Charlie Pride, and is considered one of country music's classics, a lament of the spurned lover who simply cannot let go. Why Baby Why


03-5-10... Here comes a bona-fide, truck driver classic, and it's no mystery as to why. Those guys are always horny. Sadly, though, most of them today sport guts so huge and hanging over their crotches, I'm not sure how they find their hose so it can be finagled into relieving their pressure. That's what happens when conglomerates take over all the truck stops. Once a guaranteed stopping place for travelers of any ilk to get a healthy meal in a good, sit-down restaurant, now the conglomerate truck stops offer walk-up fast-food counters of the same variety to be found on any street in any town big or small. No wonder truck-driver bellies look like beach balls.



What does this have to do with a truck driving song? Not much. Just listen to the lyrics and reminisce over the good old days. From 1965, it's Del Reeves singing about Girl on a Billboard.

Two-minute samples of these three songs can be found HERE.