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I'm interested in knowing places where Bob Wills played in California. Especially, I'm interested in knowing exactly where the Wills Point ballroom was. It's been variously described as "in" and "near" Sacramento.
Anybody?
Anybody?
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Re: Locations of Places Bob Wills Played?
Wed, November 2, 2005 - 9:11 AMIf no one here knows, I think Tom Diamant of "Panhandle Country" on KPFA would know. He's responsible for reissuing the Tiffany Transcriptions. He has a show every other Sunday on KPFA. The studio line is (510) 848-4425
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Re: Locations of Places Bob Wills Played?
Wed, November 2, 2005 - 10:30 AMthis wont help with a search for west cost venues -
but a great book/travelog about bob and early wester swing in texas is -
Lone Star Swing: On the Trail of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys by Duncan McLean
review -
Duncan McLean has a dilemma. He's head over heels for a music that's not only going out of style, but is found most prevalently in Texas--a long way from his home in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. After exhausting Scotland's supply of western swing, in 1995 McLean travels to America, rents a Chevy Cavalier, and heads west to explore the birthplace, meet the makers, and dig up the roots of the sounds with which he's fallen in love. As he describes it:
"This is the hottering chili-pot of New Orleans Jazz, old country fiddling, big-band swing, ragtime, blues, pop, mariachi and conjunto that dominated Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and beyond--all the way to San Francisco in the west, Memphis in the east--from the mid-Thirties till mid-Elvis. This is western swing."
Lone Star Swing is both musical pilgrimage and witty travelogue. As McLean trails his favorite music over the back roads of Texas, his adventures make for interesting reading. He has a way of making you feel you're riding along in the passenger seat as he finds the top 10 things to do in Turkey, Texas, on Bob Wills Day (Bob is McLean's western-swing hero), learns how to nibble an onion cooked up sunflower style at the Presidio Onion Festival, gets lectured for cussing in front of ladies after his Chevy gets its doors rehung by a hit-and-run driver, and suffers the wrath of Gulf Coast prawns eaten too far from their home waters. And although he's far away from the Orkney Islands, McLean has a way of making himself at home in just about every place the music takes him. -
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Unsu...
Re: Locations of Places Bob Wills Played?
Wed, November 2, 2005 - 1:07 PMGoogle-sleuthing turned up this:
Wills Point Ballroom burned to the ground in the year 1956; it was located near the Del Paso Park & Del Paso Heights neighborhoods of Sacramento, which would likely have been unincorporated in Wills' day.
The discussion areas at www.texasplayboys.net and www.delpasoheights.org are probably your best bet for specifics. There seem to be a lot of people posting who were around in the heyday.
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Re: Locations of Places Bob Wills Played?
Thu, November 17, 2005 - 8:43 AMcheck out Cains Ball Room in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma......the home of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys......