|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: THE LEA COUNTY MUSEUM
TEXAS PLAYBOYS STREET DANCE AND CONCERT IN LOVINGTON JULY 5
The legendary Bob Wills band, the Texas Playboys, will perform at a street dance and concert on the town square in Lovington, New Mexico, on Saturday evening, July 5.
The free night of music and dance is part of several celebrations of the town’s centennial taking place throughout the year.
Appearing also with the Playboys will be the Rusty Hudelson band featuring vocalist Tanya Moody.
Now called Leon Rausch and the Texas Playboys, the band includes Rausch, Tommy Allsup and Johnny Gimble, also legendary musicians and singers in western, country, and swing music.
Rausch, Allsup, and Gimble all played in the Bob Wills band for many years and were in Fort Worth with Wills at his last recording session, the December 3rd and 4th, 1973 performances that produced “Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys For The Last Time.”
Hudelson, who is producing the Lovington event, says that among the several groups “we could have had for this show, none is better than the Texas Playboys. Folks should get ready for a night of some of the best music they’ve ever heard.”
In addition to the music, there will be chuckwagon barbecue available for dinner, opportunities to tour the historic 1918 Commercial Hotel, a longhorn cattle drive, and other activities at the Lea County Museum located on the Lovington square.
In the early afternoon, the historic Lea Theater, also located on the square, will have free screenings of several singing cowboy movies from the 1930s and 1940s. The films will feature such stars as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
The Texas Playboys appeared in over a dozen western movies at the height of their popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Those films included “Rhythm Round-Up”, “Blazing the Western Trail”, and “Lawless Empire”, all released in 1945.
During a 25 year period, the Texas Playboys was one of the most popular bands in America and not just in country music circles. They played from California to New York. At different times, Wills operated out of headquarters in Texas, Oklahoma, and California.
Wills biographer David Townsend writes that the “key to Bob Wills’ success was the fact that he would add instruments, songs, and stylistic innovations that were foreign to traditional string bands.”
Lovington’s centennial celebrations will include many other events, including games and contests on Friday July 4 and the 5th on Saturday.
On July 25-26, and on Aug. 1-2, there will be an outdoor play called “This House of Love” performed at the Lea County Museum. The play is set in Lovington in 1912, just four years after the town formed on the windswept plains of southeastern corner of New Mexico, which became a state the same year. |
