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From: Buddy McPeters
Date: June 02, 2005
The question was brought up recently, 'Who was the Greatest Texas Playboy?' After giving this question a lot of thought, it is my opinion that Eldon Shamblin was the Greatest Texas Playboy to ever come through the Bob Wills band.
The reason for my opinion on this is simple: Eldon Shamblin brought more to the table in the long haul than any other musician Wills ever hired. He was a lot more than just a great guitar player. He brought his talents for arranging and experience with Big Band orchestrations as well as his sense of innovation and sophistication to the Texas Playboys no other player before or after possessed.
In short Eldon Shamblin was a musician's musician. He brought the element of real Swing to the band which had not really existed in the Playboys music until he came along and taught them what real Swing was all about: it's about Rhythm.
It's no big secret that Eldon set the standard for Western Swing rhythm guitar that superceded every other guitarist who had played with Bob Wills prior to Eldon joining the Texas Playboys in November, 1937, but his innovative rhythm guitar style also defined what was to come later in Bob Wills Texas Playboys rhythm guitarists and all of what is considered Western Swing. That standard remains to this day, virtually untouched. Many guitarists can play some of Eldon's rhythm guitar style, but nobody can play all that he played. And that's just his contribution to rhythm guitar in as a Texas Playboy! In later years during the mid 70's while with Merle Haggard's Stranger's band, Rolling Stone called Eldon the "Greatest Rhythm Guitarist in the World!"
His innovations in the area of the Twin Guitar idiom along with steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe are what set the standard for all subsequent Texas Playboy bands, as well as Western Swing bands to follow, with the Twin Guitar influence reaching music styles and genres outside of Western Swing including directly influencing Southern Rock bands like The Allman Brothers who majored on the Twin Guitar sound with songs like 'Ramblin' Man' (not Waylon's tune), 'Jessica', 'Blue Sky' others especially from their most popular album, 'Brother's and Sisters' (1973) which featured longtime Allman's guitarist Dickie Betts and the late Duane Allman's replacement guitarist Les Dudek who played harmony twin guitar parts with Betts on all the songs. The music isn't Western Swing, but the trickle-down effect of the influence is there. Leon McAuliffe credited Eldon with coming up with the Twin Guitar idea, which came about when they were rooming together in hotel rooms on the road. While working on a song Eldon suggested that he play harmony parts to Leon's melodic part, which birthed the Twin Guitar idiom.
Eldon's contributions to the arranging in Bob Wills band reach further than any other arranger Bob ever had, both in the area of head arrangements, which were memorized from rote and played by ear which evolved from the Twin Guitar idiom which manifested in later incarnations of the Playboys as intricate parts composed for various songs in post-WWII band, where we heard Bob utter those immortal words, "Eldon, Tiny, Herbie!", of which a vast percentage of were composed by Eldon. Some of the highlights were his parts he wrote for 'San Antonio Rose' after the Big Band, 'Milk Cow Blues' sans Junior (the same riff heard on 'Sweet Kind Of Love'), the parts on 'Bubbles in My Beer' and 'Spanish Fandango' etc and many, many others too numerous to mention here. (Yes, many of the other Playboys contributed to those bits, ie the parts on 'Boot Heel Drag' were Johnny Gimble's riff he had played on 'Milk Cow Blues' prior to joining Bob, but by and large most were Eldon's) Eldon was equally responsible for a great deal of the written arrangements which were orchestrations (that were not played by rote or by ear) on sheet music handed out to the various horn players and other musicians in Bob's Tulsa Big Band which Eldon wrote out for each musician in the band! Great examples of this are 'New San Antonio Rose', 'Big Beaver', 'Liebestraum', 'La Paloma' and many others that proved that not only was Bob Wills a major heavy-weight contender in the Big Band era competing on a level with stellar greats like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, The Dorsey Brothers bands and a host of others, but also that Eldon Shamblin was a more than capable arranger who could write out a dozen or more parts for brass and reed instruments to play some of the most heavenly Big Band music ever played! (Hear also Eldon's Big Band style of rhythm guitar, which was different than what he played on Bob's other music. Freddie Greene had nothing on Eldon in Big Band rhythm guitar!) Eldon's duties as an arranger were not limited to the guitar parts or the horns but over the years he rehearsed the fiddles (including Bob!), assisting them in playing their parts together to achieve that 3 and 4 fiddle synchronicity that's unmistakably recognizable as Texas Playboy fiddle magic. Spade Cooley may have had that Symphonic sound with 4 or more violins, but he didn't have what the Wills band had with as many or fewer fiddles. And Eldon Shamblin had a big part in that!
Eldon was also very instrumental in bringing other great musicians into the Texas Playboys organization during his more than 20-year tenure with Bob Wills. When he joined in 1937 he came on with the understanding that Bob would also hire another musician Eldon had been working with, reedman Charlie Laughton. Thru the years Eldon auditioned many of the greats that we all love and adore, and as acting band manager for Bob (another of Eldon's many talents!) he 'hired' men like Johnny Gimble and Bobby Koefer and literally dozens of others along the way.
Eldon performed numerous other duties for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys band, many he never got a lot of credit for. He drove Bob in his car to and fro as much as anyone and from many accounts had a lot to do with keeping Bob sober in the pre-war years. Eldon was a no non-sense sort of guy who not only possessed a great ear and had vast knowledge of music; he always had the best attitude and was always the straight man. He was probably the greatest teacher in the Playboys band. Even Johnny Gimble stated that they all (the Playboys!) learned from him. He always with a good head on his shoulders with a strong business sense, which is why Eldon eventually began taking care of the book keeping chores and handling matters concerning booking. Eldon also oversaw the arranging and recording sessions for the all of the Cindy Walker songs heard in Bob's Columbia motion pictures, though he did not play on any of them. Eldon also oversaw the rehearsals for first Luke Wills Rhythm Busters recording sessions for King arranging the tunes, writing the parts and played on the sessions along with Junior Barnard.
Eldon was a Texas Playboy longer than any other person and along with Joe Holley, played on more of Bob's recordings from the classic Texas Playboys era (pre-1960) than any other musician.
Eldon had a great many talents that were valuable in so many ways. He could have easily left Western Swing and slid right into the Jazz world. He was one of the guitarists that Bob Wills had who could play any song using the chord melody technique, something he rarely did in Bob Wills music (his intro to his solo on 'That's What I Like About The South' is sorta in this vein), but outside Bob's band he was known for it and played it superbly ranking him among great Jazz guitarists like the father of the style Eddie Lang and followers Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, George Van Eps, Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith and many others. It's a cool technique where a melody or a counter-melody solo is played using full chords rather than just one string or two at once (double-stops) etc and Eldon was great at it!
He often belittled his own lead guitar playing insisting that "Junior Barnard was the greatest 'take off lead guitarist Bob ever had" and "Jimmy Wyble was the best Jazz guitarist Bob ever hired", be that as it may, Eldon played great single string lead guitar that was so great even early on in his tenure with Bob, the great Jazz magazine 'Down Beat' acknowledged Eldon's prowess as coming "closer to Charlie Christian's steady flow of ideas than any other white plectrist." a compliment not to be taken lightly coming from them, in light of the fact the woods were full of Charlie Christian imitators, they regarded Eldon as an innovator rather than an imitator.
When Merle Haggard was thinking about recording his Tribute to Bob Wills 'The Best Damn Fiddler in the World' album, Bob told him "Be sure you get Eldon on guitar!" Bob told Tommy Allsup the same thing when plans were being made for the 'For The Last Time' sessions.
If that isn't enough, let me tell you what Eldon did the day of the 50th Anniversary Texas Playboys Concert in August 1984: Eldon arrived at the hall before 8 o'clock that morning by special arrangement with the hall management in order for him to come in and tune the piano and check out the sound system. He tuned the piano (gratis by the way!) and checked every microphone and all of the cords and all of the technical stuff to do with the sound system including the recording equipment which had been brought in by Delta the night before. He oversaw the sound check from his chair and contributed the entire day to the all-day rehearsal, which produced that great performance. He left the stage briefly once that I saw, that entire day. While he was gone someone suggested to Leon that they play an old Big Band Pop tune that is a very chordy song. Some concern was expressed by another person there who voiced their opinion that maybe they shouldn't play it because of the chordy nature of the song, to which Leon responded, "Don't worry. We've got Eldon here, he went to get some water and he'll be back. He knows all the chords and he can't be stumped. We couldn't do this without him!" I was there all day and all night and I can tell you he was the first to arrive and one of the last to leave the following morning after that performance was all said and done! Eldon, then 67 years old, not only literally played his ass off that day and night, he worked it off all day and into the next, putting in an over 18 hour day! (Which he was never paid for by the way)
All things considered, Eldon Shamblin was The Greatest Texas Playboy of them all!
Buddy McPeters