Benny Strickler in Tulsa with Bob Wills

Benny Strickler in Tulsa with Bob Wills

"The BENNY STRICKLER Story: Bob Wills & Tulsa, 1941-42" by Dave Radlauer, published in the Winter 2013 edition of the Frisco Cricket, the newsletter of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation.

"Strickler was transformational in two contrasting music genres: Bob Wills Texas Playboys Western Swing orchestra, and the San Francisco Traditional jazz sound of Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band.

"Colorful interview clips vividly describe Benny's key role in Wills' superlative 'Tulsa Orchestra' of 1941-42 and his meteoric rise in Los Angeles, Tulsa and San Francisco, before his career was ended by tuberculosis at age 25."

Part 2, focused on Strickler's brief time in San Francisco and his untimely death, here.