Tex Williams
Although not nearly as well-known as figures like Bob Wills, the Maddox Brothers, and Merle Travis, Tex Williams was an important Western swing performer. Like all of the aforementioned musicians, he helped develop country music from its rural, acoustic origins to a more danceable, city-fied, and electrified form with a much wider popular appeal. At his peak in the late '40s, he also recorded some of the most enjoyable country swing of his time, distinguished by his talking-blues vocal delivery. Much of his style can be heard in the Western swing-influenced recordings of revivalists like Asleep at the Wheel, Commander Cody, and Dan Hicks.
The singer and guitarist caught his first big break after moving to Los Angeles in 1942. At that time California was populated by many former Texans and Oklahomans working in the defense industry, creating a need for Western swing entertainment in a region not noted for country music. One of the musicians on this circuit was fiddler Spade Cooley, who employed Jack Williams as his singer, nicknaming him "Tex" to ensure easy identification by the many Texans in their audiences. Several of Cooley's mid-'40s Columbia singles featured Tex on vocals.
Capitol offered a contract to Williams as a solo artist, which strained the relationship between Tex and the tempestuous Cooley to the breaking point. Cooley fired Williams in June 1946, a move which backfired badly, as most of Cooley's band opted to follow Tex rather than remain with their difficult boss. Cooley achieved his greatest subsequent notoriety when he was convicted of beating his wife to death in a drunken fit in 1961.
Tex's renamed backing band, the Western Caravan, was one of the best units of its kind. Numbering about a dozen members, it attained an enviable level of fluid interplay between electric and steel guitars, fiddles, bass, accordion, trumpet, and other instruments (even occasional harp). At first they recorded polkas for Capitol, with limited success. They found their true calling when Williams' friend Merle Travis wrote most of "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" for him, emphasizing Tex's talking-blues delivery and heavier boogie elements. The song was a monstrous commercial success in 1947, and indeed one of the biggest country hits of all time, making number one on the pop charts.
That set the model for several of Williams' subsequent hits: hot Western swing backup, over which Tex would roll his deep, laconic, easygoing narratives of humorous, slightly ridiculous situations. As enjoyable as these were, they were just one facet of the Western Caravan's talents. The outfit was also capable of generating quite a heat on boogie instrumentals and more straightforward vocal numbers in which Williams actually sang rather than spoke.
Williams' commercial success began to peter out in the early '50s, and he left Capitol in 1951. He continued to record often in the 1950s, mostly for Decca, without much success; in 1957, the Western Caravan disbanded. He pressed on, however, returning to Capitol in the early '60s, and recording a live album that included Glen Campbell on guitar. He had one final country hit, the memorably titled "The Night Miss Ann's Hotel for Single Girls Burned Down," which entered the Top 40 in 1971.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo
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Tex Williams: I Got Texas in My Soul
Jazz - Released by Retrospective on 2 Jun 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage Collections
Country - Released by Capitol Nashville on 1 Jan 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Smoke Smoke Smoke
Country - Released by Capitol Nashville on 1 Jan 1960
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Smokin'
Country - Released by Turntable Recordings on 10 Jul 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Very Best (The Shasta Masters)
Country - Released by Varese Sarabande on 1 Jan 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Swingin' the Range: Tex Williams' Western Swing Revue
Country - Released by Lunar Shift on 23 Jun 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Those Lazy, Hazy Days
Country - Released by Rockabilly Records on 1 Jan 1974
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wild Card - The Best of Tex Williams
Country - Released by Good Time Records on 8 Apr 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ernest Tubb's Talking Blues
Chris Bouchillon, Tex Williams, Red Murrell, Pat Foster, Dick Weissman, Woody Guthrie
Pop - Released by Fantastic Plastic on 1 Sep 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Green Green Grass At Home
Country - Released by Jukebox Entertainment on 16 Jun 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Country Pioneers - Tex Williams
Country - Released by Sleeping Giant Music on 12 Oct 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Drop Dead
Jazz - Released by Black & Partner Licenses LLC on 30 Apr 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette
Blues - Released by Redwood Records on 25 Mar 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
C B Radio Craze - Now Yer Talkin'
Humour - Released by SnailWorx on 8 Sep 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
Blues - Released by Redwood Records on 26 Mar 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Let's Go Rockabilly
Rockabilly - Released by Fury Records on 23 Jun 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Wild Card
Country - Released by Golden Bridge Records on 13 Nov 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo