It's a pleasure to meet you Tommy. You have played with both Bob Wills and Buddy Holly and I'd be interested to know a little more about your time with these two legendary and great artistes.

"Yeh. When I got out of high school I got to work with Johnny Lee Wills band in Tulsa, Oklahoma; that's Bob Wills brother. I was there a couple of years and then went back to Oklahoma and had a nightclub there...had a band at the club. Then about 1958 I went to Clovis, New Mexico to play on some records for a trio out of Portallas New Mexico at Norman Petty's studio. That was where I met Buddy. I went out for one day and Norman asked me if I would hang around to do some more sessions. He had people lined up and didn't have a guitar player. So I said I'd stay for a few days, it was work.

One day Buddy came in to record. He had heard some stuff that I had done with the Bowman Brothers and asked me if I'd like to play on his records and I said yes. So a couple of nights later we recorded 'Its So Easy', 'Heart Beat' and some of those other songs I did with him. They released 'Its So Easy' as his next record and it had a guitar solo on it. He said you will have to go on the road with me man, because I can't play that solo on the song.

I went on the road with him on his first tour, which was in the summer of 1958, and we had another tour later on that year in the fall, which was a big package tour. Then his next tour was the Winter Dance Party, which was after Jerry Allison and Joe B (Mauldin) had left the group. He had hired Waylon to play bass and I had brought in a drummer from Oddessa; his name was Carl Bunch. We worked until the plane crashed.

Waylon had given up his seat to the Big Bopper and I flipped a coin, to see who went; Ritchie or me. Ritchie won the coin toss and he flew in my place and that was about it."

Waylon suffered a kind of guilt over the fact that Big Bopper had died in what should have been his place. Did you also suffer any such pain.

"No, not really."

Tell me how you came to work with Bob Wills.

"OK. Right after that...I had met Bob, when he had worked some jobs with us, when I was with Johnny Lee. He had come around for a while and I had known Bob for several years. I went to Liberty Records in 1960 to work for Snuff Garrett and they had just started a country & western department.

Joe Alison had done a couple of albums with Bob and I took over his job as country P&R person . Willie Nelson was one of ours and Little Joe Carson. I re-signed Bob Wills and did some more shows with Bob. We stayed friends, we recorded again some stuff and a couple or three years later he did some radio shows down at Fort Worth. So I put together a double album there of those radio shows, then in December 1973 he did For The Last Time album. That was when he was in the wheelchair, kinda directing the band...calling the shots. He had a bad stroke, actually on the first day of recording and he never really recovered."

Around 5 years ago, Sonny Curtis came over to the UK with the Crickets on a tour as support for Nanci Griffith. We you on that tour?

"No! I recorded with the Crickets after I went to California in 60. They recorded on Liberty and recorded some stuff with Bobby V, then recorded some singles on their own. I played on those, but never go out on the road with them. They've had a number of different guitar players."

So what are you doing these days Tommy?

"Leon Rausch and I have the rights to the name Bob Wills Texas Playboys and I do a lot of dates with that. Then I live on a guest ranch outside Snider (Texas) and I perform out there at the weekend. When I'm not on the road I do a single act. I have a lot of CDs and I play along to music tracks. I kinda like doing that, which is good practice and I don't have to travel far from my house."

Looking at your CDs on sale, you have a gospel album, a pop album, a Buddy Holly style album.

"Yes! I have several CDs for sale, I have a country CD and country gospel guitar album. I've just finished another country orientated instrumental album, I'll probably have it out in 4-5 months. We've done a live album...The Texas Playboys, which we recorded a year ago down in Rockwell Texas. Other than that we stay pretty busy."

Are we likely to see you coming over to the UK.

"Yeh, we would love to come over, if somebody will brings us over."

We have several big festivals going off over there.

"Yeh, we would love to do a festival over there. If you could hook us up with somebody we would be glad to do it."

Well thanks very much for your time.

In the 1999 - 42nd Annual Grammy Awards Tommy was a precipitant for Best Country Instrumental Performance on Bob's Breakdowns along with Asleep At The Wheel (Ray Benson, Chris Booher, Cindy Cashdollar, David Miller, Jason Roberts, David Sanger & Michael Francis), Floyd Domino, Larry Franklin, Vince Gill & Steve Wariner.

If there's anyone out there with the 'vision' to explore this incredible music, it would be the gold at the end of a musical rainbow!