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Bobby is one of the top rated fiddle players
in western swing today; he is also professor of mathematics
and was also a high school teacher. Though busy working with
several bands throughout the five-day festival, Bobby was
pleased to take the opportunity to talk to me about his musical
career.
It's a pleasure to speak to you Bobby, tell
me what brought you into the music business.
"I started out at 9 years old in Dennison,
Texas. My dad started a kid band and we ranged from 9-14 years
old. He did all the arranging and showing us the Bob Wills
music. We played...probably 14-18 weeks on the Big D Jamboree,
which was pretty big in Dallas, Texas at that time. This is
around 1950-51 and Johnny Gimble was in the house band there.
After that we moved here to Wichita Falls where I went to
school. Around 1953-54 I started playing with Bill Mack doing
radio and TV shows for about 4-5 years, before I started teaching.
I started working for Leon Rausch about 1972 and I've been
with his band for about the last 27-28 years. About 1977 I
went to work with Leon McAuliffe and The Original Texas Playboys
after the late Keith Coleman died. We were with them until
around 1986 when they were disbanded."
Over the past few days here at the Legends Of
Western Swing festival, we have seen you playing with several
bands. Do you play with these bands regularly?
"I play with Tommy (Tom Morrell), Cowjaz and
Dave Alexander who we saw earlier in the week, but we just
kinda freelance here and there. Most of the work that is consistence
is with Tommy and Craig Chambers, then the Playboys that we
do. So there is about 4-5 bands that we job with."
Do you still live around Wichita Falls?
"No I live in Mansfield, Texas."
Do you do national tours in America or is the
work more a of State thing?
"It is more state to state. We do New Mexico,
Navada, Arizona and out to California and most of it is west
of Dallas. We do very little in East of USA. We play parties
in that part of the country but it's very rare for us to go
East."
So what kind of venues are you playing?
"We do a lot of rodeos and fairs. We do a lot
of private parties and night clubs. We do keep very busy with
this kind of music. We are very lucky!"
Didn't you play over in London a few years ago?
"Yes with a cowboy singer, Don Edward. My guess
would be 10-11 years ago. We started in Scotland and went
all the way to the very tip of England...Great Britain and
we were there for the Texas Travel Bureau...Texas Tourism.
There was Tommy Morrell, Don Edwards, myself and one other
feller. We just setup and played for the different travel
agents in the hotels and then somebody decided that we needed
to play a dance while we were there. So they booked us into
this night club. We only had 4 pieces, but we used the clubs
drummer, who were a western swing band and everything worked
fine. I believe the club was the borderline in London."
It could well be so Bobby. The club still plays
host to many county artistes. I'd just like to say thanks
for taking the time to talk to me.
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