Western Swing: August 2008 Archives
HackLawyer.net: Don Helms, last surviving sideman for Hank Williams, dead at 81
"His steel guitar provided an aching, visceral tone of grief to Williams' music and hence, its very identity.... As a boy, he fell in love with the music of our own Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and in particular, with the steel guitar music of Leon McAuliffe. He got his first steel guitar from his grandmother when he was 15 and at the tender age of 18, began to play with Williams around the joints in Alabama. After Williams' death, Helms joined the Ray Price band and was a key part of that singer's success in the 1950s."
The story of the Ernie Ball family and their guitars, interwoven with the story of the southern California music scene and names like the Beach Boys, Leo Fender, and Albert Lee. (Ernie Ball played steel guitar for Tommy Duncan's band.) "One of the great things we did back then was drive to the northern border of the San Fernando Valley and go to a place called the Sundance Saloon. They had a Tuesday night Jam hosted by Don Everly. The band was Buddy Emmons, Byron Berline, and just about every legend at the time even Glen Campbell..everyone. I wasnt old enough but sometimes I would sit out front and sometimes they would let me in. I remember sitting outside one night and the kid next to me was a guitar from Oklahoma named Vince....Vince Gill."
Proper Box Set: Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys: Take Me Back to Tulsa
Discography for Proper's excellent 4 disc set, covering the years 1934-1950.
Bob Wills Discography -- Joe Sixpack's Guide To Hick Music
Handy (but incomplete) summary of compilations, transcriptions, and reissues by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, plus albums by the other Wills brothers and Tommy Duncan.
