"San Antonio Rose" | ||||
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Single by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys | ||||
B-side | "The Convict And The Rose" | |||
Published | June 5, 1940 by Irving Berlin, Inc. [1] | |||
Released | April 1939 [2] | |||
Recorded | November 28, 1938 [3] | |||
Studio | Dallas, Texas | |||
Genre | Western swing | |||
Length | 2:35 | |||
Label | Vocalion 04755 | |||
Songwriter(s) | Bob Wills | |||
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys singles chronology | ||||
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"New San Antonio Rose" | ||||
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Single by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys | ||||
B-side | "Bob Wills' Special" | |||
Released | August 1940 [4] | |||
Recorded | April 16, 1940 [5] | |||
Studio | Burrus Sawmill Studio, Saginaw, Texas | |||
Genre | Western swing | |||
Length | 2:37 | |||
Label | Okeh 05694 | |||
Songwriter(s) | Bob Wills | |||
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys singles chronology | ||||
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"San Antonio Rose" is a swing instrumental introduced in late 1938 by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Quickly becoming the band's most popular number, Wills and band members devised lyrics, which were recorded on April 16, 1940, [3] and released on Okeh 5694 in August as "New San Antonio Rose". Despite having completed a lengthy Hillbilly/Folk chart run in 1939, which culminated at #1, it quickly rose to the top again, in early 1941. [5] It went on to become the band's theme song for the next forty years, reverting to its original title.
The song is written in the first person with the "Rose of San Antone" being the singer's lost love. In 2010, the Western Writers of America ranked it at number 49 on its list of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. [6]
While it was also a successful hit for other Hillbilly artists, it also broke through to the pop charts, where Bing Crosby's version reached #7 on December 16, 1940. [7] [8] Over a million copies were sold, for which he was awarded a gold disc.
The song was the third dominating hit by Wills in the Western Swing field over the last five years. "Spanish Two Step" was second to only Mexicali Rose in 1936, "Steel Guitar Rag" topped the 1937 chart, and this one finished in the top ten in 1939 and 1940. The Texas Playboys finished with thirteen Number one chart hits. [9]
The song, both the music and lyrics, reflects the Mexican influence Bob Wills found growing up in the Southwest. [10] Wills developed the melody of the original "San Antonio Rose" itself from a traditional tune, "Spanish Two Step", by playing the bridge in reverse. [11]
"New San Antonio Rose" ruffled the feathers of Southern country music moguls when Wills and the Playboys performed it with horns and a drum at the Grand Ole Opry on December 30, 1944. [12] [13]
The song has been recorded by many artists in several genres.
It lends its name to San Antonio Rose Palace in San Antonio, Texas, owned by George Strait.
Tish Hinojosa's "San Antonio Romeo", on her album Culture Swing, provides Rose's side of the story.
James Robert Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing. He was also noted for punctuating his music with his trademark "ah-haa" calls.
"A Maiden's Prayer" is a composition of Polish composer Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska (1834–1861), which was published in 1856 in Warsaw, and then as a supplement to the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris in 1859. It is a short piano piece of medium difficulty for intermediate pianists. Some have liked it for its charming and romantic melody; others have described it as "sentimental salon tosh." The pianist and academic Arthur Loesser described it as "this dowdy product of ineptitude."
Sollie Paul "Tex" Williams was an American Western swing musician. He is best known for his talking blues style; his biggest hit was the novelty song, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! ", which held the number one position on the Billboard chart for sixteen weeks in 1947. "Smoke" was the No. 5 song on Billboard's Top 100 list for 1947, and was No. 1 on the country chart that year.
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.
A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World is the eleventh studio album by Merle Haggard backed by The Strangers, released in 1970.
Thomas Elmer Duncan, was an American Western swing vocalist and songwriter who gained fame in the 1930s as a founding member of The Texas Playboys. He recorded and toured with bandleader Bob Wills on and off into the early 1960s.
"Faded Love" is a Western swing song written by Bob Wills, his father John Wills, and his brother, Billy Jack Wills. The tune is considered to be an exemplar of the Western swing fiddle component of American fiddle.
"Dinah" is a popular song published in 1925 and introduced by Ethel Waters at the Plantation Club on Broadway. It was integrated into the show Kid Boots. The music was written by Harry Akst and the lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. Hit versions in 1926 were by Ethel Waters, The Revelers, Cliff Edwards, and Fletcher Henderson.
Eldon Shamblin was an American guitarist and arranger, particularly important to the development of Western swing music as one of the first electric guitarists in a popular dance band. He was a member of the Strangers during the 1970s and 1980s and was the last surviving member of Bob Wills' band the Texas Playboys.
John Paul Gimble was an American country musician associated with Western swing. Gimble was considered one of the most important fiddlers in the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 in the early influences category as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
William Leon McAuliffe was an American Western swing guitarist who was a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys during the 1930s. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of that band, and was a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.
"Steel Guitar Rag" is the seminal Western swing instrumental credited with popularizing the steel guitar as an integral instrument in a Western band.
"Roly Poly" is a humorous Western swing standard written by Fred Rose in 1946. In the song, Roly Poly is a very active boy who eats continuously to keep his strength up. Each verse ends with:
"Time Changes Everything" is a Western swing standard with words and music written by Tommy Duncan, the long-time vocalist with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Written as a ballad, the lyrics tell of a failed romance and of the hurt that has healed. Each verse ends with:
"Ida Red" is an American traditional song of unknown origin, made famous in the upbeat 1938 version by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, the primary inspiration for Chuck Berry's first big hit "Maybellene". It is chiefly identified by variations of the chorus:
"Take Me Back to Tulsa" is a Western swing standard song. Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan added words and music to the melody of the traditional fiddle tune "Walkin' Georgia Rose" in 1940. The song is one of eight country music performances selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll".
Westerns swing originated in the 1920s and 1930s; small towns in the US Southwest. Although sometimes subject to the term "Texas swing" it is widely associated with Tulsa, others contend that "Western Swing music finds deep roots in the dust bowl of Oklahoma", and its influences include jazz from the major urban centers of the United States. Its stylistic origins lie in Old Time, Western, blues, folk, swing, Dixieland and jazz. Writing in Rolling Stone, Dan Hicks described it as Texas-bred music grafted to jazz, or as "white country blues with a syncopated beat.".
"Bubbles in My Beer" is a Western swing song that was originally recorded by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in 1947. It later became a standard that has been performed by many country music artists. One critic of drinking songs ranks it number 20, calls it "the ultimate self-pity song," and credits it with "setting the tone for a whole genre of songs about drowning sorrows in the barroom."
Don't Fence Me In is a compilation album of phonograph records by Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters released in 1946 featuring Country and Western songs. This album contained the enormously popular record "Pistol Packin' Mama", which sold over a million copies and became the first number one hit on the then-new Juke Box Folk Song Records Chart that was later renamed the Hot Country Songs Chart.
Noel Edwin Boggs (1917–1974) was an American musician who was a virtuoso on the lap steel guitar and a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. He was one of the pioneers in electric steel guitar who helped popularize the instrument beyond its native Hawaiian music into other genres of American popular music, specifically Western Swing. Boggs played and recorded with almost every major artist in the genre including Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (1944-1945) and Spade Cooley's Dance Band. Bob Wills' band helped define the guitar's role in western swing; Wills discovered and coached innovative guitarists who deeply influenced country, rock and jazz music. Boggs appeared on some 2000 recordings as a soloist and his playing was prominent on several of Wills’ hits that became Western swing standards, including "Roly Poly" and "Stay a Little Longer".