Artist	Song
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Texas Playboy Theme (opening)
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	San Antonio Rose
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Texas Playboy Rag
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Miss Molly
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Fat Boy Rag
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Dinah
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	St. Louis Blues (Part 2)
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	I'm a Ding Dong Daddy
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	I'll Get Mine Bye and Bye
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Nobody's Sweetheart Now
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Cherokee Maiden
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	I Never Knew
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Playboy Chimes
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	I Had Someone Else Before I Had You
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Swing Blues
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	The Girl I Left Behind Me
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Sun Bonnet Sue
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Bring It On Home to My House
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Barnard Blues
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Milk Cow Blues
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Sally Goodin
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	A Smooth One
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	My Life's Been a Pleasure
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Jesse Polka
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Take Me Back to Tulsa
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Ida Red
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Stay a Little Longer
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	Texas Playboy Theme

Comment:

World War II broke up Bob Wills' big band, which was based in Tulsa. The guys enlisted, got drafted, or drifted off to work in defense plants. Bob enlisted in 1942, but wasn't able to complete training due to poor physical condition. He was discharged in 1943 and ended up in California where he decided to make his new base. He began to put the Playboys together again, but where his Tulsa bands had large horn sections to go with the strings, his post-war bands were primarily string bands. Really, WWII signaled the end of the big band era in the US, and the western swing bands were no different. The new lineup didn't hurt the Playboys' popularity, however. They played an arduous road schedule and drew large crowds, sometimes having to turn disappointed fans away. Seems like plenty of folks wanted to kick up their heels in the postwar years.
In 1945 Bob, Cliff Sundin, and Clifton "Cactus Jack" Johnson formed the Tiffany Music Company to start a syndicated radio program. The Tiffany Transcriptions were recorded in San Francisco in 1946 and 1947 on 16-inch discs and were accompanied by a script that local disc jockeys could read between the songs. The idea was to make it seem like a live Playboys show on the local stations. Over 370 selections were recorded, but shortly after the release of part of the recordings, the company unexpectedly folded and the transcriptions were withdrawn from the market. The transcriptions, masters, promotional material, and related items were kept by Sundin in his house until his death in 1981. In the early 80s, Rhino issued a series of nine albums of the transcriptions.
The transcriptions are unique among Playboys recordings. The format allowed the band more freedom than recording material for commercial release. They were able to experiment, to try new arrangements, and improvise on solos. And they really stretched their wings on a wide range of styles -- down-home fiddle music, sophisticated jazz arrangements, pop tunes, blues, ballads, you name it. Because the band was able to cut loose, the transcriptions are the closest thing to live recordings of the Playboys that we have. It was also a talented band of musicians. Some great fiddling by Joe (Jody) Holley, Tiny Moore, Louis Tierney (who also played sax), and Bob himself. The rest of the strings were Lester (Junior) Barnard, Herb Remington (who also played steel) and Eldon Shamblin on electric guitar, Tiny Moore on electric mandolin, Noel Boggs on steel, and Ocie Stockard on banjo. Millard Kelso tickled the ivories, Alex Brashear played trumpet, Johnny Cuviello was the primary drummer, and Bob's brothers Billy Jack and Luke played bass -- often together in a double bass arrangement. And the great Tommy Duncan, the Bing Crosby of Western Swing crooners, handled most of the vocals -- in addition to Bob's contributions, of course.
These selections are my favorites from 8 of the 9 volumes (I'm missing volume 7, which is now out of print along with a couple of the others). I could have easily filled two discs though, and the final cuts really hurt. So, here they are -- 80 minutes of pure Playboy fun! Ahhh-Haa!

Feedback: