Bob Wills Lives!

Wills, who passed away in 1975, and his band the Texas Playboys are the subject of a massive new box set being issued by Collector’s Choice Music early next year.

The Tiffany Transcriptions, due January 27, is a collection of syndicated radio programs produced in the ’40s by Wills, California disc jockey Cliff “Cactus Jack” Johnson and businessman Clifford Sundlin for subscribing stations.

The 10-disc, 150-song set, remastered by Bob Fisher and featuring liner notes by Wills expert Rich Kienzle, features classics like “New San Antonio Rose,” “Faded Love” and “Take Me Back To Tulsa.”

Kienzle says the recordings bring to life a side of the band that studio sessions could never touch.

“For all the great records Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys made in 1946-47 for Columbia and MGM – and there were plenty – the Tiffany sessions captured something deeper, intangible and vibrant, music that even the occasional miscue or missed note can’t diminish.

“It represents the very soul, spirit and musical passion of Bob and the band as they really were on these Western and Southwestern bandstands. Sixty years later, it still sounds like yesterday.”

In fact, Wills and the band used the sessions, which often directly followed tours, as an opportunity to work out new tunes, revisit older Playboys recordings and, in true Western swing fashion, cover songs by country & western acts along with pop, big band classics, fiddle tunes, blues and instrumentals created on the spot.

Freed from the time restrictions of 78 rpm singles, Wills and his Texas Playboys took the opportunity to stretch out, jam and improvise.

The Tiffany sessions were broadcast over a network of radio stations that spanned Wills country (Oklahoma and Texas) to Oakland (home of Tiffany Music, Inc.), plus Houston, Texarkana, Austin and even the Pacific Northwest and Santa Monica, Calif.

Sundlin retained ownership of the material until he died in 1981, when Kaleidoscope Records purchased it, issuing selected tracks on a series of LPs and then CDs. The Tiffany Transcriptions features all of the original Kaleidoscope albums in their entirety.