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Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys 1954 Standing
left to right: Truitt Cunningham, Skeeter Elkin, Darla Darret, Earl
Finley, Seated in front: Billy Wright, Mrs. Billy Wright, Bob Wills Skeeter Elkin The 1950s are generally seen as declining years for Western Swing and
this was certainly true for the music's most famous exponents Bob Wills and his
Texas Playboys. It was especially true in the latter half of the decade, when
rock and roll burst onto the scene and altered America's musical landscape. But
even earlier in the decade, television, changing tastes and a changing economy
had toppled the music from its mid-to-late forties peak of popularity. Still,
the music flourished in pockets and its influence was readily apparent not only
in honky-tonk and mainstream country, but also in rockabilly and rock and roll. Many groups, like Hank Thompson's or The Miller Brothers made
stylistic compromises or adjustments to remain more commercially viable, but
others, like Wills, hewed fairly closely to what they had been doing for years
and relied on a loyal fan base built over many years. Wills may have faded
somewhat in the 1950s and his groups may have been smaller and not always as
strong as they had been in previous years, but these years, and particularly the
various Texas Playboys groups during this time, have tended to be underrated.
The Tulsa years may have been the "Glory Years" of regional supremacy
and the mid-forties West Coast days were years in which Wills and the Playboys
vied with pop country, but despite personal and professional challenges and
upheaval, Wills led some excellent bands in the '50s and employed some of the
best and most exciting musicians he ever hired. Although some writers, like Rich Kienzle, have
dealt with these mid-period bands with insight, Charles Townsend's San Antonio
Rose, though excellent in many aspects, is particularly guilty of undervaluing
the 1950s-- the entire decade is dispensed in less than a chapter--and of
ignoring the Playboys of the time in his research. Men like steel guitarist
Billy Bowman and pianist Skeeter Elkin were not only among the best musicians
Wills employed on their respective instruments, they also worked lengthy stints
with the Playboys--much longer that many of the men Townsend sought out for
details on Wills' life and career--and not only were they never interviewed for
their insights for that study, their excellent contributions to Wills recordings
of the period were ignored. Although Wills' habit of naming his musicians on
records has insured that any real Western Swing fan will know his name
(“Brother Skeeter” or “Skeeter-let’s buzz a little my boy”), Skeeter
Elkin has remained particularly undervalued, not only by Townsend but by others
as well. Until recently at least. One of the bright spots in Jean Boyd's recent,
uneven study of Western Swing, The Jazz 0f The Southwest, is that she chose to
interview Elkin (though like so many others over the years, she rendered his
name inaccurately as Elkins rather than Elkin). Al Stricklin may be the most
famous Texas Playboys pianist, followed possibly by Millard Kelso, but Elkin may
have been the best, certainly among the Playboys' pianists who spent long
periods on the band (other candidates include the always excellent Mancel
Tierney, who worked a few short stints with the Playboys during 1948-50; Elkin's
immediate predecessor Pee Wee Lynn, who never recorded with the band; and others
who were briefly Playboys, like Mo Billington, who didn't solo at all at the
July 1942 sessions on which he played, and Art McNulty, who recorded one session
with Wills in 1955). Cliff
"Skeeter" Elkin was born in Denison, Texas, just south of the Oklahoma
border in Grayson County, in 1922. The north Texas-southern Oklahoma area in
which he was reared was a musically rich one and was particularly responsive to
Western Swing when the music began to take shape in the early-to-mid 1930s. The
Denison-Sherman area and the area just south and east that encompassed
Greenville and other towns produced such excellent musicians as steel/lead
guitarist Lefty Perkins and his bass playing brother Walter, Bill and Jim Boyd,
early electric guitarist Zipper Coffman, steel guitarist/pianist Tiny Colbert,
fiddler Leonard McWright, accordionist Red Gilliam, and many, many others. Elkin
first took to accordion and was playing professionally by his mid-teens with
Knight's Happy Cowboys on KRRV, a transitional band that straddled the fence
between Western Swing and older styles that, among others included fiddler Ted
Hodges, a prolifically recorded mainstay on the Dallas scene of the late 1940s. While still in high school, Elkin moved from
Happy Cowboys to Hack Reynold's Dixie Rhythm Boys in Sherman. Elkin made
noontime broadcasts during his study period at high school-- "I got off at
11 and didn't get back until about one. The guys picked me up and I rode over
there with them... I played accordion first and then the piano player that was a
friend of mine, grew up with, he went and got another job and I started playing
piano in his place. And I've been playing piano ever since. Reynolds group included the leader on fiddle and
vocals; Mac McClusley, guitar; Lowell McManes, guitar; Stonewall Jackson, tenor
banjo, and others, and played area joints in addition to radio. "I was only
about 17," Skeeter recalls. "My mother went with me. I don't know
whether they had drink--we [Grayson Countyl were wet and dry at different
times." It was usually dry and a string of rougher joints sprang up in the
wet areas just across the Red River in Oklahoma, though the Dixie Rhythm Boys
played mostly the relatively tamer clubs on the Texas side. Like so
many other jazz-minded players who worked chiefly in Western Swing rather than
more straightforward jazz or pop groups (though he would play his share of
gigs with these, as well), Elkin was influenced chiefly during this period by
mainstream jazz stars. "I started listening to Teddy Wilson a whole lot,
then Nat King Cole, when he came out. I listened to all of 'em." In later
years, he'd get to hear many of these jazz legends in person, like Oscar
Peterson and Art Tatum, to whose playing Elkin had been introduced in the late
forties in San Angelo, Texas by drummer Jake Williams. In
1939-40 Elkin was working six nights a week in fiddler Leonard McWright's
Denison band and, by the early 1940s Elkin was working at the Kraft Cheese plant
and playing in the company band, the Kraft Swingsters, which broadcast on KRRV. Band
members included McWright, John Crabtree and Major Franklin, fiddles; Tiny
Colbert, steel guitar; Elkin, piano; Hastings Ballou, guitar; Bert Christopher,
tenor banjo; and Walter "Pappy" Perkins, bass. Elkin, who had married
Nell Matthews in 1940 (they would have two children, Carol Ann and Jerry
Melvin), worked at Kraft in the early months of US involvement in World War II,
classified 3-F. The exact chronology of his band work over the next few years is
difficult to establish. He spent time working around Denison with Leonard
McWright, whose band over the years included guitarists Jimmy Wordlow and Lonnie
Wakefield, saxophonist Ralph Emerson (who was married to Elkin's cousin),
trumpeter Jimmy Armond, drummer Rosey Rosemond, among others. After leaving
Kraft, Elkin took a job with a magazine distributorship in Denison, playing
nights with McWright, then moved north to Durant, Oklahoma to work with a rival
distributorship and to play with Ray Weger's pop band. He also worked in Durant
with former Dixie Rhythm Boy Lowell McManes' Western Swing band. After the war
he worked in Eastern Oklahoma with a band financed by rancher Cole Reese that
included Reese's teenaged sons Don on guitar and Eddie on bass. In the spring of 1947, while working a stint
in Denison, possibly with Leonard McWright, Elkin made his first recordings,
traveling to Dallas with Eddie Miller and his Oklahomans to record a session for
the local Blue Bonnet label. The group included Miller, guitar and vocals; Louis
Franklin, fiddle: Tiny Colbert, steel and vocals: Blind Billy Blanchard,
clarinet: Vernon "Chubby" Crank, trumpet; Royce Franklin, bass; and
Rosey Rosemond, on drums. It was Miller's second and final session for the label
and eventually five songs from the date were issued: "Slow Down Baby",
"Don't Break My Heart Anymore", "Cab Driver's Blues",
"No Stars In Heaven" and "I Wish You Felt The Way I Do."
(the latter was issued under Tiny Colbert's name: two of these songs were issued
on the Krazy Kat various artists LP Fiddle Swing, the liner notes of which
erroneously identify Al Stricklin as the pianist, while two others are available
on the Krazy Kat CD Wanderers Swing). The Miller recordings show that
Elkin's style was already defined: deft, but hard swinging jazz piano, bluesy
and decidedly Southwestern--a style that would make him a perfect pianist for
the Texas Playboys when he joined the group a few years later. (Elkin also
remembers making some straight pop-jazz recordings during this period with a
vocalist and small combo, but it remains unclear who the artists and label
were.) After working with Lowell McManes in
Durant, Elkin went with McManes to the jumping raucous East Texas oil town of
Longview (also working in Kilgore), with a group that included steel guitarist
Jimmy Latham, bassist Junior Wixom and others. He also spent some time playing
in drummer Hal Black's jazz band at the Top of the Hill Club at Grantham Lake at
Shreveport, a group that featured jazz saxophone veteran Pud Brown and Black's
vocalist wife Penny, who with Black and her sisters (who were then married to
steel guitarist Tommy Durden and fiddler Vic Cardis, respectively) had earlier
toured with Tex Ritter: (Black would also later work as drummer with Houston
Western Swing bandleader Benny Leaders). Later, when Elkin was working with Bob
Wills in Los Angeles, he would go see Pud Brown when the latter was working with
jazz trombone legend Jack Teagarden, and got to sit in with the group. Following another stint with Lowell McManes
in Durant, Elkins went with McManes to the Hanger Club in San Angelo at the end
of the forties. San Angelo had a vibrant music scene, with bands like Dub Adams'
K-Bar Ranchhands and Snuffy Smith's Snuff Dippers. McManes' excellent Western
Swing band included the fiddle legend Preacher Harkness, late of the Shelton
Brothers, Jimmie Davis and Bob Wills' groups (Preacher fiddled, with Joe Holley,
on Wills' April 1945 Columbia session, though he's never been credited in Wills
discographies). The band also included Jake Williams on drums and veteran
fiddler Jerry Byler also appeared as a special attraction. After a few months,
McManes returned to Oklahoma and Elkin was asked to take over the band at the
Hanger Club. He built a versatile horn-filled band, bringing a couple of old
Oklahoma cohorts down, including trumpeter Claude McNutt and reedman Ralph
Emerson. "We had two saxes, trumpet, trombone," Elkin recalls. "I
wrote the arrangements. It sounded good. We played a little bit of everything
and it was starting to feel pretty good. They had free beer on Saturday night
and we had a mob there." Although by Elkin's own account,
recounted by Jean Boyd in The Jazz Of The Southwest, he joined the Texas
Playboys in the late 1949, this event unquestionably occurred in late 1950--he
joined the Playboys when they were based at the Bob Wills Ranch House in Dallas,
which did not open until well into 1950. Also, Wills' pianist from late 1949
through the spring of 1950 was Mancel Tierney (heard on Wills' April 1950
Hollywood recording session, the date that produced "Faded Love, Rock-A-Bye
Baby Blues" and other classics); Tierney was succeeded by Pee Wee Lynn and
Elkin replaced Lynn in the fall of 1950. Elkin recalls that it was Snuffy Smith
who got him the job with Wills. Smith had been leading his own band in San
Angelo prior to going to work for Wills as a jack-of-all-trades in 1950,
as sometime singer and occasional bassist, as well as driver; door man--
whatever was called for. Smith worked concessions at the Ranch House when it
first opened that year. "Snuffy came over there and said Bob needed a piano
player," Elkin remembers. "He wanted to know if I wanted to go try
out. I said sure, I wouldn't mind trying, so I took off down there to Dallas.
They had the Ranch House there, you know, and I went down there and they called
all the band together and I went up there and played a few tunes. Bob said,
‘That sounds good. Why don't you come out and go to the house with me.’ He
introduced me to Betty, to his kids, said, 'You're hired.’” Elkin returned to San Angelo, gave two weeks
notice at the Hanger Club, then began a long tenure with the Texas Playboys that
would last to mid-decade. He couldn't have guessed it, with Wills' seemingly
well-established at the new huge Bob Wills Ranch House, that the next few years
would be one of constant relocation between Texas and California, with base
changes punctuated by long, grueling tours. The group that Elkin joined was an
excellent one that included Eldon Shamblin on guitar; Bobby Koefer on steel,
Billy Briggs on tenor sax, Wayne Nichols on trumpet, Kenny Cannan on trombone,
Jack Loyd and Luke Wills alternating on bass and vocals, Billy Houck on drums
(while Johnny Gimble led a house band that played the Ranch House when Wills was
on the road). Personnel changes were common, however, and within a few months
the horns except Billy Briggs were gone; old hands Joe Holley, fiddle, and Ocie
Stockard, fiddle/tenor banjo, had returned, Paul McGhee had replaced Houck on
drums, and Joe Andrews had replaced Loyd. Elkins made his first recordings with
the group in May 1951, an uneven three song session that produced one memorable
cut: Ramona Reed singing Dickie McBride's pop-ish "I'm Tired Of Living This
Lie," which boasted great solos from Elkin, Bobby Koefer and Billy Briggs:
other tunes were the highly forgettable "Pliney Jane" and the dreary
folk ballad "Little Girl, Little Girl." In the coming months there were more
changes: Eldon Shamblin and Luke Wills left the band for a time, and Wills
reduced his band following the horrible, financially and personally devastating
events of 1951, when men Wills hired to handle money matters at the Ranch House
not only embezzled from him, but put him in an impossible tax and debt situation
that reportedly cost Wills over a half-a-million dollars and caused him to sell
valuable properties (including rights to some of his most famous compositions)
and would eventually lead to his selling the Ranch House in 1952. When the band
recorded again during a West Coast tour in September 1951, where it waxed sides
for MGM as well as filming several shorts for Snyder Telescriptions, it had been
reduced to eight pieces, including Bobby Koefer, Joe Holley and left-handed
guitarist Cotton Whittington, as well as returning prewar vocalist-bassist Joe
Frank Ferguson. The sessions teamed Wills with West Coast vocalist Carolina
Cotton, and though there were weak moments (Wills' dreary vocal on Cindy
Walker's “The Last Goodbye” for example), the sessions produced some
excellent, spirited recordings, too, that found Elkin in great form:
"Twinkle Star, Brown Skin Gal, Sittin' On Top Of The World, Hubbin'
It" and others, while "Ida Red" was a highlight from the Snader's. Although Charles Townsend points out
that 1952 was, in many ways, a highly successful year for Wills, it was also the
beginning of tougher times. Television and changing tastes had drastically
reduced Western Swing's viabilty on the national recording scene, though dance
crowds remained generally strong for now. Wills' desire to establish a solid
home base like he had had in Tulsa in the prewar years--an impossible dream
really, following demands of touring that kept the band way from these homes
bases too much of the time--caused him to constantly relocate in the coming
years, too impatient to remain in any one place too long once it became apparent
that it would not be another Tulsa. In early 1952, Wills returned to Wills Point
in Sacramento, California for a time before relocating to Houston, where the
Playboys held forth at the Plantation Club. Perhaps material during the MGM years was
often not up to the standard of earlier recordings, and the band may have missed
a central featured vocalist of Tommy Duncan's caliber; but Wills maintained
strong bands and, though the major hits may not have been coming anymore, most
of the MGM recordings hold up very well today. A double-session held in March
1952 in Dallas was no exception. An excellent band that included two steel
guitarists, the 'very underappreciated Shorty Messer and Bob White, and the hot
fiddle team of Joe Holley and the returning Keith Coleman, romped through Leon
Payne's "Steamboat Stomp," the jumping “Snatchin' And Grabbin’”
as well as a feature for teenaged singer Darrell Glenn, son of the veteran
bassist Artie Glenn (a one time Playboy himself), "I Won't Be Back
Tonight," and a new take featuring Bob Wills singing Bessie Smith's
'Downhearted Blues" (retitled "Trouble, Trouble Blues"). Elkin's
playing was one of the highlights of the dates; he produced excellent,
full-bodied solos on "I Won't Be Back Tonight", "Snatchin' And Grabbin',"
and the unissued "Charlie Changed His Mind," and indulged in some fine
boogie woogie work on "Steamboat Stomp." By January of 1953, after Wills' father had
died in Dallas at the end of 1952, Wills had relocated to Los Angeles, where he
began broadcasting on KXLA (his program followed Cliffie Stone's, which featured
the cream of West Coast players like Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant and Billy
Strange) and appearing at the Harmony Park Ballroom in Anaheim. The Playboys
remained relatively small, but were a very good tough, group. In addition to
Elkin, Keith Coleman and Eldon Shamblin, Billy Bowman had returned on steel and
Jack Loyd was back in the old fold on bass and vocals; the band was rounded out
by vocalist Bill Choate, vocalist and sometime bassist Louise Rowe, and drummer
Jack Greenback. Various radio shows survive from this period and many sides have
been issued on LP and CD (most recently a CD issued on Country Routes). It was
an exciting band, at least at times, and sides like "In The Mood" and
"Rock-A-Bye Baby Blues" found Elkin, Coleman and Bowman all in top
form. The group recorded in March in Hollywood, with old hand Jesse Ashlock
replacing Coleman, Billy Jack Wills taking off briefly from his band in
Sacramento to sing a couple of tunes, and vocalist/guitarist Jay Roberts was
added. Although Charles Townsend dismissed the session as "not mark[ing]
one of the band's better performances," it did produce some excellent
sides, particularly "Bottle Baby Boogie, B. Bowman Hop," and Jack
Loyd's fine reading of the Dick Reinhart ballad "A Broken Heart For A
Souvenir." Wills' continued dissatisfaction led him to
relocate again by the summer. He moved to KGNC in Amarillo, opening at the new
Clover Club there. Amarillo had had an active country dance scene since the
1930s and boasted acts like steel guitarist Billy Briggs' XIT Boys and Roy
Terry's Pioneer Playboys (from whom Wills would take several musicians a couple
of years later, including fiddler Loyd Wheeler and drummer Jimmy Benjamin, while
Terry would himself come along as bus driver and sometime singer). As Townsend
points out, "Again, the familiar story: Wills was in such demand across the
country for personal appearances that he was rarely in Amarillo...Though Bob and
Betty Wills had intended to remain in Amarillo indefinitely, they left in the
Spring of 1954." Wills and the Playboys made their last
recordings for MGM in Hollywood in March 1954. Among Wills' best 1950s sessions,
the dates showed Wills, who'd always responded to blues, responding more to
current R & B sounds, reflecting not only the influence that style was
having on other music at the time, but also possibly reflecting the impact of
Bill Haley, who had begun to make noise the previous year with sides like
"Crazy Man Crazy” and of younger brother Billy Jack's more modern,
aggressive Western Swing band in Sacramento. Fiddler-saxophonist Louie Tierney
had returned to the band, the drummer was the little known Johnny Megretto, and
Billy Jack came down from Sacramento again to sing his "Cadillacin' Model
A" (mistitled "Cadillac In Model A" by MGM). Wills revived his
old standby "St Louis Blues," jive-talking with himself, courtesy new
recording technology, and Claude Fewell, a versatile musician and fine singer
Wills picked up from Snuffy Smith's band, sang his "Doin' The Bunny
Hop." The latter could have been a forgettable novelty, but Fewell's bluesy
vocal and the loose, swinging support of the Playboys made it anything but.
Similarly tough and swinging was "Texas Blues," which like "Doin'
The Bunny Hop" was given a fuller sound by Tierney's saxophone. Despite Lee
Ross' sometimes indifferent vocals, there wasn't a bad cut at the session, which
also yielded "I Hit The Jackpot", "Waltzing In Old San Antone",
"I've Got A New Road Under My Wheels", "I Live For You," and
a new version of "Maiden's Prayer." Claude Fewell even threw in an
East-of-the-Mississippi banjo solo on the decidedly country "So Long, I'll
See You Later." Elkin, Bowman and Tierney shone throughout, with Skeeter
offering fine bluesy solos on "Texas Blues" "Doin' The Bunny Hop" and
"Cadillac In Model A." It was a session that under-scored Wills'
entire MGM years: despite a few dogs, the sessions had produced mostly top notch
music. It was simply the right music at the wrong time. Some of Wills' most exciting bands
over the years were left unrecorded commercially or not recorded at all--the
huge, 20 piece mid-1944 orchestra, for example. But one of the most lamentable
of these bands was the group that Wills put together when he hit California
again after leaving Amarillo in 1954. Many talk of the mid or late 1940s band as
being the last really strong bands that Wills led, but though the Playboys
fluctuated in quality from the middle 1950s onward, he led notable bands almost
to the end--the 1964 group he led shortly before giving up the Playboys
altogether, which featured Maurice Anderson and Gene Crownover on steel guitars
and Billy Carter on lead guitar, was an inventive and often exciting group, for
example. The 1954 California band was something special, though. In addition to
mainstays Elkin and Billy Bowman, it boasted former Playboy and growing jazz
guitar legend Jimmy Wyble, along with Earl Finley, formerly of Ole Rasmussen's
Nebraska Cornhuskers, on lead guitars, the excellent jazz fiddler Billy Wright
(later replaced by Curly Lewis), returning bassist-vocalist Jack Loyd, as well
as bassist Truitt Cunningham, drummer Howard Jabow and teenaged girl singer
Darla Daret. It was a tight and sophisticated group as capable as any Wills ever
led, as surviving air checks prove. But the group lasted only a few months and,
by the time he signed a new recording contract with Decca and recorded his first
sessions for the label in January 1955, Wills had dissolved it and taken over
Billy Jack's band at Wills Point in Sacramento. Only Elkins, Jack Loyd and Darla Daret were held
over from the latest Playboys group, and Claude Fewell, a guitarist in his days
with Snuffy Smith, came in on drums. They joined former Playboy stalwart Tiny
Moore, fiddle/electric mandolin; Cotton Roberts, fiddle/bass; Tommy Varner,
steel; Kenny Lowery, guitar; and Billy Jack, bass/drums. Billy Jack's band had
been an extremely tight, exciting group, responding to R&B and bebop in ways
that Bob's groups though equally jazzy and bluesy in a less modern vein. Rich
Kienzle has written in detail about the demoralizing effect Bob's takeover had
on the group in general and Billy Jack in particular; though the group had begun
to feel the effects of television and other factors. At any rate, the Decca
recordings--18 sides cut over two days--were uneven and found Wills referring
more to past triumphs than during the MGM years, recycling old hits like
"San Antonio Rose", "Spanish 'Two-Step", "Four Or Five
Times", "Lone Star Rag", "Beaumont Rag", and even the
first song he ever recorded with the Playboys, "Osage Stomp". While
the sessions were perhaps not as weak as Kienzle has written, they pale not only
in comparison to the transcription made by Billy Jack's group in the months
previous, but also to both Bob's last MGM session and the air checks of the
later 1954 band. There were bright spots (though the soloists were defeated by
an uninspired rhythm section)- Moore's electric mandolin, Terry's steel, the
underappreciated Loyd's ever-maturing vocals --and Elkin was typically inventive
and swinging. The sessions also found Wills taking a far more active role as a
fiddler than had usually been the case in recent years. The first Decca dates proved Elkin's
last with Bob Wills (they were also Tiny Moore's and Jack Loyd's last). When Bob
decided to relocate once again later in 1955, Elkin remained in Sacramento, as
did Billy Jack. He was replaced by Art McNulty then later by the returning
Millard Kelso (after Kelso left in 1958, Wills didn't regularly employ a pianist
until he hired Benny Johnson in the mid-60s). "We both wanted to be off the
road and we were tired," Elkin remembers. "Billy Jack wanted to stay
here and I wanted to stay here, too. Bob went on and Billy stayed here and
started up his band again and I stayed and worked with him for about two
years." Billy Jack had signed with MGM during 1954 and continued to record
for the label through 1956, with Elkin on piano. Highlights included versions of
R&B classics like "Good Rocking Tonight" and "All She Wants
To Do Is Rock." Later when Billy Jack moved north to
Redding, California, Elkin stayed in Sacramento. "The kids were getting big
and I didn't want to move around. I'd moved around enough already. I wanted to
stay here with the kids...I got a job at Sears. I worked at Sears for fourteen
years. After I left, I went to Wards and worked there for thirteen years."
In the meantime, Elkin continued to play on the side, more often with pop
orchestras or jazz groups than with Western Swing groups. Sadly Nell Elkin died
in 1967. On one memorable occasion in the late seventies,
Elkin became a Texas Playboy again, when he appeared on NBC television's
"50 Years Of Country Music" special in a group put together by Johnny
Gimble to play with Merle Haggard in tribute to Wills. The large, excellent
group, assembled at a time Leon McAuliffe was leading the reformed
“Original” Texas Playboys but including musicians not playing in that band,
was possible the best Playboys group assembled since the 1940s (or at least
since 1954). In addition to Elkin, it boasted Joe Holley, Johnny Gimble, Tiny
Moore, Herb Remington, Alex Brashear, Wayne Johnson, Teddy Adams, Monte Mountjoy,
Eldon Shamblin, and Johnnie Lee Wills. Although he quit playing altogether for a short
time, Elkin eventually eased back to playing. Today, among other things, he
continues to work Truitt Cunningham's San Antonio Rose Band and remains a vital
and exciting pianist. Acknowledgments:
Cliff
"Skeeter" Elkin, Jesse A. Morris, Bobby Koefer, Johnny Gimble, Earl
Finley, Ora Colbert, Bob Pinson. Printed Sources
Include: Charles Townsend,
San Antonio Rose: Jean
Boyd, The Jazz Of The Southwest; Tiny Colbert, unpublished
autobiographical manuscript; Rich Kienzle, various liner notes, including Papa's
Jumpin' (Bear Family) and Billy Jack Wills transcription collections (Western
and Joquin labels). Thanks to
writer Kevin Coffey and
the Western Swing Journal
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