**The Bob Wills stamp is a part of the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my hub page dedicated to this long-running and important project of the United States Postal Service.
The Bob Wills stamp is the last of the four stamps in the quartet of 1993 stamps featuring Legends of Country Music. This 1993 set also includes Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and The Carter Family.
I have mixed feelings about this series. On the one hand, it was a celebration of American music in all its forms. It is particularly important for its celebration of women musicians and musicians of color.
On the other hand, the selection of artists and genres is uneven for a variety of reasons. The ten stamps in the jazz set are a strong collection of jazz icons. Rock & roll, however, leaves out too many early great. In part, because musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard were still alive when the set was made. Other musicians who were previously on stamps such as John Philip Sousa and Scott Joplin were not on new Legends sets, no matter their importance to American music. Many of the designs of the Legends stamps are rather unappealing, appearing flat and cartoon-like.
The country music set is a good example of all of this. The set is very strong for the four artists/acts chosen. Yet, why limit the group to four? It seems very arbitray.
Bob Wills
Bob Wills was born near the town of Kosse in eastern Texas. His entire family was musical, and his father was a champion fiddler. The Wills’ family would even provide music for country dances in their home. As a child, Bob Wills was able to learn the fiddle and the mandolin. In addition to learning traditional folk tunes, he also had exposure to blues music from Black families working cotton fields near where his family lived.
After moving around (including a period riding freight trains), Wills became a barber. This trade would provide a steady source of income for Wills and his young family before he became big as a musician. In Forth Worth, Wills honed a style of performance that he would keep his whole life, becoming a talkative band leader, telling jokes, as well as singing and playing fiddle at the front of a band. It was in this same Texas city where Wills first encountered the music of Bessie Smith, fallin gin love with her voice and rendition of blues music.
The Texas Playboys
Wills created a group known as The Playboys in the early 1930s, moving to Waco where they first found success. By 1934, the group was ready for a bigger market and they relocated to Oklahoma, eventually broadcasting on noon shows on KVOO radio. The group played traditional folk music on the radio, but in the evening would perform blues and other ballads. The styles began to mix and then inadvertently, Wills hired a trumpeter who began playing with the group (Wills thought he was hiring him to be an announcer). This led to hiring a saxophone player and then eventually a drummer to balance the horn players.
The type of hybrid music the group was playing was an early form of western swing. Though the group fell apart with World War II, after gaining a discharge from the army for medical reasons, Wills moved to Hollywood in 1943. There, he reorganized the group and as the swing era was in full roar, he played up the mix of country and swing he created in Oklahoma. It was an enormous success. The band played the noon hour at KMTR-AM radio in Los Angeles and would also perform regularly at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego.
The Texas Playboys was a hot band and Wills would continue to experiment, including being among the first bands to include electric guitars. Wills and his Playboys also appeared in a number of Hollywood films and cut many recordings. The band was popular through the 1950s, but with the demise of Swing music, western swing was also out of favor. Among his most popular songs were “Faded Love,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” “New San Antonio Rose,” and Ida Red. The band became less popular by 1960 and after suffering two heart attacks in 1965, Wills dissolved the band. He died in 1975.
The Stamp
Scott Number US2772
In my opinion, the Country Music selection is one of the strongest in the Legends series. There is no question that the four artists/groups were among the most important of early country, the only obvious omission is Jimmie Rodgers and he was on a 1978 stamp. I think there could be more stamps in the set to include artists like Roy Acuff (on a 2003 stamp), Bill Monroe, or Chet Atkins.
Yet, the artwork is flat. Cartoon-like, but not in a fun cartoony way. The stamp is important for its topic, but lackluster in design. The designer of the country music set was the prolific stamp creator Richard Waldrep.
The Hank Williams stamp was the flagship stamp of the set and was released on June 9, 1993. The other stamps in the set came out a few months later on September 25th. This was common in the Legends series, for example the Elvis stamp came out before the rest of the rock & roll group and the Louis Armstrong stamp preceded the other jazz stamps.
The Bob Wills stamp features a portrait of the musician with his violin in place. His bow is raised as if to play, or perhaps suggesting he is already playing. Wills wears a big ol’ cowboy hat and smiles from ear to ear. A great pose, but a rather caricatur-ish rendition.
As always, make sure to check out some of Wills’ great music!
