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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1981)
*★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ VY^.'.coDAY, JUNE 3, 1981 FIRST MEETING MSC AMATEUR RADIO COMMITTEE W5AC THURS. JUNE 4TH 7:00 P.M. 137 MSC State Reunions common in Turkey, Texas Wills’ band members stick togethe United Press International TURKEY — AI Stricklin's first encounter with Bob Wills came 50 years ago at a Fort Worth radio station and Stricklin wasn’t sure what to make of the animated young fiddler and his unusual brand of music. Stricklin was working at KFJZ and Wills came to audition for a show. “None of us had ever heard the kind of music they did — off- brand, rebellious music,” Strick lin said recently. “We put him on and with all his antics and ‘ah- haaing’ we thought it was funny. But we put him on, gave him his own show, and the mail just poured in. They loved it.” Stricklin, like a good portion of the United States, came to love Wills’ style — the eclectic, impro- visational combination of black blues, Dixieland jazz and country that became known as western swing. In 1935 Stricklin became “the of piano-pounder” in Wills’ band — by then known as the Texas Playboys — and helped put oooooooooooooooo § CAMPUS § THEATRE 5210 Un. 846-6512i O Now Showing: Guaranteed haircuts. Dolly Parton Jane Fonda The professionals at both That Place locations guarantee you’ll get a pro fessional cut, one that will fit your personality and lifestyle, one you’ll love to live with. So come in and let us create for you. We guarantee our work! Nine to Five Starting Friday: Sylvester Stallone Sorry, no cash refunds. fK in Nighthawks 696-6933 693-0607 ©©OOOOOOOOOOOOOO ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ J23-83Q0 MANOR EAST 3 THEATRES MANOR EAST MALL STARTS FRIDAY 2:45 5:05 7:25 9:45 STARTS FRIDAY VERY SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW FRIDAY AT 7:25 ONLY RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK * * * * * * ¥ i * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * i * * * -K * ¥ * * * * * * * ★ * * * * ¥ out the tunes that would make a bit of music history. “I feel that I was a privileged character to spend the years I did with Bob Wills,” Stricklin said. “It was something special. You couldn’t build a fence around our music. It was uninhibited.” Stricklin, who has retired to Cleburne, was one of about 30 for mer Texas Playboys who gathered in Turkey, Wills’ hometown, April 25, for the 10th annual Bob Wills Day celebration. It was the largest congregation of Playboys since Wills’ death in 1975. There had been another Play boy reunion the night before at a summer theater for high school students AUDITIONS for "PICNIC" by William Inge actors actresses technicians experience not required registration 6 p.m. June 4 room 301 Bizzell Texas A&M $15 fee Sponsored by the Texas A&M Theater Arts Program 845-2621 Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth. , featuring old-time Playboys Stricklin, Leon McAuliffe, druiyi- mer Smokey Dacus and guitarist Eldon Shamblin. “We get together to play like this about a dozen times a year and I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Leon Rausch, a Playboys vocalist in the late 1950s and 1960s who still has his own band, said back- stage at Billy Bob’s. “It keeps me young. I really look forward to ’em.” Three generations of country music fans also look forward to the Playboys’ reunions. About 5,000 people — teen-agers as well as craggy old-timers — pushed into the West Texas town of Turkey (pop. 600) for the Wills festival and a healthy crowd at the spacious Billy Bob’s showed up to see the Playboys share a bill with The Drifting Cowboys, Hank Wil liams old band. “Between us and Hank’s old band there’s quite a bit of history out there,” Rausch said. In 1929 Wills gave up his bar- bering job in Turkey, grabbed his fiddle and headed for Fort Worth. Two years later he began to make it big as leader of the Light Crust Doughboys, advertising Light Crust Flour from Burrus Mill and Elevator Co. That ended when Wills had a falling out with the mill’s general manager, W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, who went on to be governor and U.S. senator. After a stint in Waco, Wills and his musicians landed in Tulsa, Okla., and took the name “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys” in 1934. He began putting together the band that would he his person al favorite and the most musically successful. “In some of the bands after Tul sa, he had some of the best musi cians technically, but the Tulsa group worked together best, ” said Dr. Charles Townsend, author of “San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills.” Wills’ wanted his music to be a family affair for his audience and his band. With Wills in the lead, the band members formed a brotherhood that endures today. Ferguson, who now lives in Fort Worth and works at keeping his golf game in the 70s, and Stricklin recalled the family atmosphere among the Playboys on their flight from Fort Worth to Turkey for the Wills celebration. One reason for the popularity was the down-home friendliness Wills and the Playboys cultivated as they toured. “Bob had the same attitude ab out people as Abraham Lincoln,” Stricklin said. “He said God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them. To him, it didn’t matter if you had 5 cents or 5 million. He treated everybody the same.” “He had a rule, ” Ferguson said, “that we were not to leave a club without talking to someone in the audience. He wanted us to try to make friends. The old man was pretty sharp on things like that. Wills kept his act on the road through three decades, six mar riages, another generation of Play boys, binge drinking and failing health. In 1963 he suffered his second heart attack and the Play boys eventually were disbanded. Still there was a need to perform and he went on tour with Lam bert, playing with house bands. “At first we went out and every thing was fine but I think about a year after I was'with him he suf fered a slight stroke that4 his play and equilibrium,' Lambert. “He just wasn'tt; Toward the end on that last/ I did with him I had tostaj hind him and whispertheut; him to "My Mary,” been singing since he wasil His last fling wouldco* 3-4, 1973, when a host of Pt got together in a Dallas stud; reunion album. Amongfc hand were Stricklin, Shas McAuliffe, Rausch, Dacus, my Alsup, Hoyle Nix,; guest Haggard and Wills.»it restricted to a wheelchair. On the first day they 10 songs with Wills adding!; haas” and commentary squeaky voice. That fered a stroke and neveret; from the coma. “That next day, whenwe! Bob probably wasn make it, we all sat around*] heads down, wiping at the Stricklin said. “Finally said. Look here guys, Bi called and said she wished finish this session like Boh to do it.’ “We thought that at any we’d get the call that he W! But we played better on thel than we did on the third, body was so emotional, spired.” The same sense of’play way Bob wanted” exists t When McAuliffe, who no* KAMO radio station ii Ark., and Dacus, who the station for 19 yea together with Rausch, he stan eathly legal pi 01 Gene Gassaway, who noq outside Huntington, Ark.,a rest, the performance is stflij still lively and still apprece Woman thwarts car thel 152. United Press International HOUSTON — A woman on her way to join her fiancee for pizza noticed a man crouched inside her boyfriend’s Ford Bronco, jumped into the car and with help from a friend foiled the thiefs escape. “I’m glad I did it,” Glenda Brownson said of the incident Monday in which she and Kathy Harrison wrestled a man trying to drive away with the Bronco. They noticed a man crouched in the car as they walked through a restaurant’s parking lot. They be gan banging on the car’s windows and then climbed in. Discovering the man was hold ing a screwdriver, the pair de cided to stay together instead of go for their boyfriends. The women said the man started the Bronco as they climbed in, then began driving wildly around the parking lot. One women held the driver ■TOg&B’AVg'-'AL'T ^StATS^I^O. 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