"A beautifully written, evocative tribute to an elusive art... Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and Gato Barbieri." Performing Arts

    "He was it." And indeed he was, especially for the thousands in the Southwest who knew and loved the King of Western Swing. The colorful band leader-composer-fiddler from Turkey, Texas, lassoed the emotions of country-and-western fans nationwide. In the early 1940s, his records outsold those of any other recording artist. He was voted not only into the Country Music Hall of Fame but also into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, the only performer other than Gene Autry to be so honored. Affectionately written by a Texan who responded to the legendary fiddler's style, San Antonio Rose captures Wills's magnetism and the musical excitement he created. Charles R. Townsend traces Wills's dynamic life from his birth into a family of frontier fiddlers through his career and stardom and on to the poignant last recording session in 1973 and his death two years later. Townsend shows how Wills brought black and white music together and examines the tremendous impact he had on both popular and country music through the more than 550 selections he recorded and the forty years he and his Texas Playboys performed in dance halls and on radio.

    He sang and danced like no other performer of his time. Tall, slender, handsome and resplendent in a white zoot suit, his presence on stage was electric. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' he'd sing. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' the audience would answer. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' he'd intone. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' they'd roar back. And on it would go until the crowd was singing and stomping and dancing in the aisles. It was the Great Depression, but he made them forget. More than that, he made them happy. That has always been Cab Calloway's profession - and the secret of his monumental success - knowing how to make people happy. He has entertained presidents and crowned heads of Europe, Mr. and Mrs. America (as they were then called) over network radio and the first integrated audiences in the South - as well as those still segregated by a rope down a concert hall. He has starred in Broadway shows, made scores of movies, and written hundreds of songs. He has worked - and played - with the greats of his profession from Louis Armstrong to Lena Horne, Duke Ellington to Al Jolson, Dizzy Gillespie to Bill Robinson...."

    It is a fitting memorial to an outstanding critic and writer."--Jazz Journal Celebrating the Duke offers readers a perceptive, panoramic survey of jazz as revealed, in illuminating detail, through the lives and music of its heroes and heroines, including Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Albert Ayler, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and a rich cache of writings on "America's greatest composer," the Duke himself.Foreword by Studs TerkelNew introduction by Ira Gitler

    Penguin Pb 1978 Blk/White photo at centre the Brilliant life story of a never to be forgotten man a bit used but still good