Before CDs became widespread, music collectors interested in older music built their pre-1955 collections from 78s or 45s records. Most older music enthusiasts, like myself, who started collecting in the 1970s and 1980s, relied on these collectors, who often put their record collections on cassette tapes and let us buy them.
More than 35 years ago Jack Henderson of Pomona, California and I set out to build a comprehensive Bob Wills music collection. We tracked down every recording and rejected take that we could find from all sources, whether on record or cassette. It took us over two years to finally track down every known recording that we could find. It eventually culminated in nineteen 90-minute cassettes. And this was just the commercial recordings. It was a fun hobby, something to do after work.
About a decade later Bear Family Records came out with two comprehensive Bob Wills CD collections, but it still didn’t have all the rejected takes that we had.
Let me give you an example.
The Bear Family CD set, “San Antonio Rose,” has two examples each of “Hang Your Head in Shame” and “Smoke on the Water.”
The version we put together, has four takes of “Hang Your Head in Shame” and three versions of “Smoke on the Water.”
Now why, you ask, were there so many takes to these songs? I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, let me add that I found all of these takes but I almost never had the take numbers. I didn’t have any idea of what order they were recorded. All I had were the dates. We wondered why there were so many takes, and also how we should order them in our presentation.
Jack Henderson talked to a well-respected country music scholar in the Los Angeles area, Ken Griffies. He answered our questions. From the very beginning of Bob Wills’ recording career, he had been directed by the pioneering Artists and Repetoire man, “Uncle” Art Satherley, who was employed at Columbia Records.
Wills and Satherly were very fond of one another, and in January 1945 they had not seen each other for three years. This was due to the 1942-1944 nation-wide musicians union strike that had resulted in a two-year ban on all recordings.
They were so glad to see each other at the recording studio, that before the recording got started someone popped the cork and brought out the booze.
Bob Wills rarely drank alcohol. Sometime he would go for years without a drop of alcohol. But when he drank, he couldn’t stop. And sometimes he would drink so much that he eventually had to go to the hospital. But in this case it only resulted in a severe hangover. His body simply couldn’t handle any amount of alcohol. Some people are just like that.
Anyway, the booze got passed around, Bob imbibed and kept on imbibing. And soon the recording session got under way.
Now, to the question of the order of the takes, this is what Ken Griffies told us. With each take Bob got wilder and wilder. The more drunker he got, the more he hollered and chattered. Ken told us to order the takes in the order of Bob’s increased hollering and chattering.
Art Satherley, after throwing up his hands after the fourth take of “Hang Your Head in Shame,” got the band to play another number, “Smoke on the Water.”
After three takes of that, he managed to get the band to play an instrumental, “Texas Playboy Rag,” which they did in one take, but Satherly wasn’t satisfied with it.
Then he got the band to play, “Bluer Than Blue,” but he wasn’t satisfied with that one, either.
So they called it a day, and told Bob and the band to come back in two days.
When they came back two days later, they recorded “Hang Your Head in Shame” in one take, and “Smoke on the Water” in one take. And these were the released versions in 1945. But if you’ll notice, Bob Wills doesn’t say a lot. He was hung over.
After they got through those two numbers, they recorded “Bluer Than Blue” twice, one of which finally was good enough to satisfy “Uncle” Art Satherly.
Then they had a couple of rehearsal takes on “Roly Poly” before they got the take that everyone knows.
That was followed by one take of “You Don’t Care What Happens to Me.”
Finally, they finished the session with two takes of “(Stay All Night) Stay a Little Longer.”
They returned to the studio two days later and cranked out five more songs with one take each. There were no problems at all.
I have preserved the entire January 24th and January 26th, 1945 recording sessions that Jack Henderson and I put together over 35 years ago with copies of the original studio recordings. I know you will enjoy this rare Bob Wills recording. You will want to add these rare recordings to your Bob Wills Collection.
Unfortunately I cannot publish the audio recordings on any social media site. So I’m going to allow you to download both recording sessions free, on my website.
There are 3 MP3 Audio Files and a PDF Document included in this Free Download. Plus, I’ve added a Bonus 1-Hour Audio that combines everything, including my Bob Wills History and 2 Days of Recording Sessions, into one MP3 audio file.
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1945 Bob Wills Drunk Recording Session
Number of Files to Download: 1
File Format: ZIP Archive for Faster Downloads
File Size: 122 MB
Download Time: Less Than 1 Minute with a Broadband Connection.
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