Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who played steel guitar and bass.

Wills added a trumpet to the band inadvertently when he hired Everet Stover as an announcer, not knowing that he had played with the New Orleans symphony and had directed the governor's band in Austin.

Wills and the Texas Playboys played dances throughout the West to more than 10, 000 people every week.

Although Tom Wills is now recognised to have played a larger role in the club's early development, H. C. A.

They have met in a total of eight Grand Slam finals, ahead of the number of finals played by Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and by Helen Wills Moody and Helen Jacobs but behind the record of fourteen finals set by Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

Rick Wills of the reunited Small Faces played on David Gilmour's 1978 album, David Gilmour, then joined Foreigner later that year.

Among her most celebrated roles with Irving were Ophelia, Pauline in The Lady of Lyons by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton ( 1878 ), Portia ( 1879 ), Queen Henrietta Maria in William Gorman Wills's drama Charles I ( 1879 ), Desdemona in Othello ( 1881 ), Camma in Tennyson's short tragedy The Cup ( 1881 ), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, another of her signature roles ( 1882 and often thereafter ), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet ( 1882 ), Jeanette in The Lyons Mail by Charles Reade ( 1883 ), the title part in Reade's romantic comedy Nance Oldfield ( 1883 ), Viola in Twelfth Night ( 1884 ), Margaret in the long-running adaptation of Faust by Wills ( 1885 ), the title role in Olivia ( 1885, which she had played earlier at the Court Theatre ), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth ( 1888, with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan ), Queen Katherine in Henry VIII ( 1892 ), Cordelia in King Lear ( 1892 ), Rosamund de Clifford in Becket by Alfred Tennyson ( 1893 ), Guinevere in King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr, with incidental music by Sullivan ( 1895 ), Imogen in Cymbeline ( 1896 ), the title character in Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's play Madame Sans-Gêne ( 1897 ) and Volumnia in Coriolanus ( 1901 ).

Bob Wills and Texas Play Boys played Western Swing nightly from 1934 until 1943.

When Wills played, people danced simple couple dances: two-step, the Lindy Hop with a few western twirls, schottische, and Cotton Eye Joe.

Wills played a full 162 game schedule, plus all three games of the best of three regular season playoff series with the San Francisco Giants, giving him a total of 165 games played, a record that still stands for games played in a single season.

He is the father of former major leaguer Bump Wills, who played for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs during his five-year MLB career.

While Wills had broken Cobb's single season stolen base record in 1962, the National League had increased its number of games played per team that year from 154 to 162.

Wills ' 97th stolen base had occurred after his team had played its 154th game ; as a result, Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that Wills ' 104-steal season and Cobb's 96-steal season of 1915 were separate records, just as he had the year before ( the American League had also increased its number of games played per team to 162 ) after Roger Maris had broken Babe Ruth's single season home run record.

From 1934 to 1943, Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys played nightly at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, reaching crowds as large as 6, 000 people.

Wills himself largely sang blues and sentimental ballads.

T-Bone Walker, Lead Belly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, and even Robert Johnson himself first recorded in this area, just as Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys were leaving the studio.

Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing, was also influenced by Miller ( see the sound file above with Will's singer Tommy Duncan singing " Blue Yodel No. 1 " in 1937 ) In the early 1920s African American Winston Holmes started a record label, Merritt Records, and was a performer himself.

" Speaking of Milton Brown and himself — working with popular songs done by Jimmie Davis, the Skillet Lickers, Jimmie Rodgers, songs he'd learned from his father and others — Wills said that " We'd ... pull these tunes down an set ' em in a dance category.

Delusional from induced alcohol withdrawal, Wills escaped from the hospital on 1 May 1880, returned home and the next day stabbed himself in the heart to death with a pair of scissors in his Heidelberg home.

The band comprised Gilmour himself on guitars and vocals plus the two musicians on the album ( bass player Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson ) plus David Gilmour's brother Mark on rhythm guitar and Ian McLagan on keyboards and performed " Mihalis ", " There's No Way Out of Here ", " So Far Away ", " No Way ", and " I Can't Breathe Anymore ".

Wills left Ford on his own terms and with a sizeable severance package of more than 1. 5 million dollars, which he used to establish his own car company he originally named " Wills Saint Clair " – Wills for himself and " Saint Clair " for the Saint Clair River near which his new factory was located.

After a reputed " battle of the bands ," the date of which has not been documented, with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys at the Venice Pier Ballroom, which Cooley claimed he won, he began to promote himself as the King of Western Swing.

Filmed on location in the Mexican state of Durango, the film starred James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles, with a huge supporting cast including Bob Dylan ( who composed the film's music ), Jason Robards, R. G. Armstrong, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, L. Q. Jones, Slim Pickens and Harry Dean Stanton.

Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills.

In 1985 the film, Burke & Wills, was made with Jack Thompson as Burke, and Nigel Havers as Wills.

Spike Lee loosely incorporated Frank Wills ' story into Lee's 2004 film, She Hate Me.

In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Wills is the guard who takes Forrest's call complaining about men with flashlights across the street disturbing his sleep while he is staying at the Watergate Hotel across the complex from the DNC office.

Among their first outside contributions were " Ride ' em High, Ride ' em Low ", for the soundtrack to the 1994 film 8 Seconds, and a cover of " Corrine, Corrina " recorded in collaboration with Asleep at the Wheel for a tribute album to Bob Wills.

In the 1940s, many " jukebox " short film features featuring prominent bands ( Wills, Cooley and others ) were produced by several small companies, usually based on simple Western movie plots.

For the first half of the season, The Pruitts of Southampton followed ABC's unsuccessful The Rounders starring Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills, loosely based on a 1965 film of the same name.

Burke & Wills is a 1985 Australian adventure film directed by Graeme Clifford, starring Jack Thompson and Nigel Havers.

The film is based on the true story of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition across Australia.

The film follows the tragic expedition of Robert O ' Hara Burke and William John Wills in their crossing of Australia's interior in 1860-1.

The film is thought to have been denied awards because Academy voters were alienated by an overblown publicity campaign, particularly one Variety ad claiming that the film's cast was praying harder for Chill Wills to win his award than the defenders of the Alamo prayed for their lives before the battle.

Chill Theodore Wills ( July 18, 1902 – December 15, 1978 ) was an American film actor, and a singer in the Avalon Boys Quartet.

Wills also appeared in numerous serious roles, including that of Uncle Bawley in Giant, a 1956 film starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean.

Wills was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1960 for his role as Davy Crockett's companion " Beekeeper " in the film The Alamo.

The film Turtles Forever features this incarnation, voiced by David Wills.

The film includes two famous songs, firstly " Trail Of The Lonesome Pine " sung by Laurel and Hardy except for a few lines by Chill Wills and Rosina Lawrence, lip-synched for comedic effect by Laurel.

Wills ' 1938 recording of " Ida Red " served as a model for Chuck Berry's decades later version of the same song-" Maybellene ".

The original recorded version of Wills ' " Faded Love ", appeared on the Tiffanys as a fairly swinging instrumental unlike the ballad it became when lyrics were added in 1950.

A New York writer sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma in late 1940 / early 1941 noted an "... Oklahoma version of shag done to the Western Swing music of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys at the Cain's Dancing Academy in Tulsa.

And, a New York writer sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma in late 1940 / early 1941 noted an " Oklahoma version of shag " done to the Western Swing music of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys at the Cain's Dancing Academy in Tulsa.

They would remain the Sir John's Trio until Berry took one of their tunes, a reworking of Bob Wills ' version of " Ida Red " to Chess Records.

Much Ado about Nothing ( 1882 ) was followed by Twelfth Night ( 1884 ); an adaptation of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield by W. G. Wills ( 1885 ); Faust ( 1886 ); Macbeth ( 1888, with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan ); The Dead Heart, by Watts Phillips ( 1889 ); Ravenswood by Herman, and Merivales ' dramatic version of Scott's Bride of Lammermoor ( 1890 ).

Thompson began singing in a plaintive honky tonk style similar to that of Ernest Tubb but desiring to secure more engagements in the dance halls of the Southwest, reconfigured his band, the Brazos Valley Boys, to play a " light " version of the Western swing sound that Bob Wills and others made famous, emphasizing the dance beat and meticulous arrangements.

At the age of 14, Wills was sent to England to attend Rugby School, where he learnt the sport of cricket, as well as an early version of what is now called Rugby football.

The version was unissued at the time but was included in Sony's 2006 anthology, Legends of Country Music: The Best of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

Liquid Gold included a disco remake of " Secret Love " on their 1979 eponymous album ; Viola Wills also recorded a disco version of " Secret Love " released in 1980.

* In 2010 a surf-pop version of the song was included on the album Wills & The Light Crust Doughboys: 80th Anniversary, Together Again and performed by Art Greenhaw.

With encouragement from Muddy Waters, Berry in 1955 brought to Chess Records a tape of his cover of Bob Wills ' version of the tune which he had renamed “ Ida May ” and a blues song he wrote “ Wee Wee Hours ”, which he stated was inspired by Joe Turner ’ s “ Wee Baby Blue ”.

* Viola Wills ( 1979 ), doing a version in " disco " or " dance " style, with a slower tempo and heavy electronic instrumental backing.

The Viola Wills version of the song peaked at number fifty-two on the disco chart.