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From: Buddy McPeters
Date: October 17, 2003
Thanx Steve. I have high hopes that it will too! I need to clarify a couple of things from my previous lengthy post. One is that Noel Boggs played with electric guitar pioneer Charlie Christian in his brother Eddie Christian's band in Oklahoma City before Charlie hit it big with the Benny Goodman orchestra in 1939.
Another thing is that the guitarists that Bob Wills employed after the stellar cast of guitar greats like Shamblin, Wyble & Hill, Barnard and Whittington left the band, these guitarists who followed had a lot to live up to. They were greats in their own right and were very influential in their day to a new generation of listeners to Bob Wills music. These guys, greats such as Johnny Patterson, Lew Walker, Tagg Lambert, Leon Rausch and Billy Carter were very gifted in playing the guitar styles of the greats who'd gone before. They had to follow in the footsteps of the greats who played in the Texas Playboys during the formative years in the 30's, 40's and early 50's when they were discovering, inventing and creating innovative styles and idioms that became high water marks and the standards by which Western Swing guitar is measured.
Certainly Zeke Campbell of the Light Crust Doughboys was one of these extremely talented and creative guitarists whose innovations and creations are right up there with all of the greats in Bob's band. His single string electric lead guitar work is astounding to say the least. He even influenced George Barnes who was a great jazz guitar player in his own right in Chicago who played at the WLS Barndances and recorded with the Prairie Ramblers and many others.
Bob's later guitarists after 1956 or so when Eldon left for good, made their mark playing Eldon's rhythm style, Jimmy Wyble's BeBop Jazz licks and Junior Barnard's Bluesy string bends and slurs. They carried on a torch that was passed when the early guys moved on. Eldon left to play with Leon McAuliffe briefly again and later Hoyle Nix. Wyble made the rounds in various Western bands and eventually left Cooley's band and began playing Jazz guitar full time with such greats as Red Norvo where he recorded with Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore and even appeared in more movies. He wound up in his idol Charlie Christian's chair with Charlie's old boss, The King Of Swing himself, Benny Goodman. Jimmy has been a top-flite A-team studio guitarist since the 50's and has taught jazz guitar at a number of colleges in the Los Angeles area as well as private tutoring and is the author of 2 books on jazz guitar. Cameron Hill left Cooley in 1948 and played with some local bands in the L.A. area before returning to his native Texas, in the Houston area where he played with a number of bands before illness forced him to retire. He died in a Veterans hospital in Houston in 1962. Junior Barnard left the Playboys for the last time in 1948 and began playing in Fresno, CA with his own band The Radio Gang at the Fresno Barn. This band featured many musicians over the next 3 years who had been Texas Playboys who settled there in Fresno when Bob Wills headquartered there in May 1945 including Alex Brashear, Joe Holley, Millard Kelso, Mancel Tierney, Johnny Cuviello, Harley Huggins, Junior and his brother Gene Barnard. Many other stellar musicians from the San Joaquin Valley went thru the ranks in Junior's band including Curley Roberts, steel man Jack Ansiel, vocalist Frank Cavanee, fiddlers Bill Subko and Bob Wills cousin Jelley Sanders, trumpeter Bill Lord and others. In April of 1951 while on search for a new hall to play their popular dances, Junior was killed in an automobile accident in rural Fresno near Riverdale. He was only 30 years old. He left behind a legacy of guitar playing unparalleled in terms of the music he hade made and the styles of guitar playing his style anticipated by at least a decade and probably two. He was Rockin' and Rollin' before anyone else even knew what it was.
Johnny Patterson, Lew Walker, Tag Lambert, Leon Rausch and Billy Carter carried on the guitar styles in The Texas Playboys that had been birthed long before. Though they didn't innovate the idioms they nonetheless were influential and inspiring to up and coming Western Swing fans and Bob Wills music affectionados and shouldn't be overlooked or omitted in their role in the continuing of Bob Wills Texas Playboys guitar standards.
Buddy