Bob Wills & Western Swing: Let It Roll From the Beginning... 5.3

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys finally got onto the Grand Ole Opry, and the Opry made the drummer sit behind a curtain so nobody would know there were drums. Wills never went back. By then he was leading a band nobody had seen before: piano, bass and drums, plus fiddles, horns and steel guitar. “To my ears,” Ed Ward says of the Playboys taking on a Benny Goodman hit, “Bob cuts Goodman.” Host Nate Wilcox talks with the late Ed Ward, author of “The History of Rock & Roll, Volume One: 1920-1963,” in a conversation first recorded in 2018 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning. CHECK OUT THE LET IT ROLL WEB SITE -- We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks! Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email [email protected] Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook. Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices