Bob Wills – Stay a Little Longer

We are going to switch gears today with some western swing. This is my first time featuring Bob Wills on the blog, and I figured it was about time. I’d heard his name for years and knew about his reputation as one of country music’s true pioneers, but I hadn’t spent much time with his music. This song changed that. The musicianship is outstanding, but it never feels like anyone is showing off. It just sounds like a group of great players having a good time. Sometimes that’s exactly what music is supposed to do. I was influenced by a fellow blogger’s song he wrote, and it had a swing to it.

Every now and then I like to step back and listen to one of the artists who helped shape modern American music. Bob Wills is one of those names. He’s remembered as the King of Western Swing, but his influence reached far beyond country music. His blend of country, jazz, blues, and swing inspired generations of musicians, from country stars to rock and roll artists. This is one of those recordings that reminds you just how much fun music can be.

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys first recorded this song in 1946, and it quickly became one of the band’s signature songs. The record captures everything that made western swing so popular: great fiddles, steel guitar, and tight musicianship. I also love the playful back-and-forth that always seemed to be part of a Bob Wills performance. One of his trademarks was calling out to the band during the song, adding little shouts of encouragement that made listeners feel like they were right there with them. He wanted everyone to join in the fun.

What has always impressed me about Bob Wills is the respect he earned from other musicians. Guitarists, fiddlers, steel players, and singers all seemed to admire him. His music crossed boundaries long before that became common. You can hear country, big band swing, blues, and even a little jazz all mixed together. That influence eventually found its way into artists like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, and even rock musicians who appreciated the freedom and musicianship of western swing.

Bob was a mentor to my father and gave him the fiddle he is playing in this picture. I still have it. Bob wanted my father to play with the Texas Playboys, but my mother, hearing the stories about the band on the road, said no way. So he joined the Light Crust Doughboys, and Johnny Gimble took the spot as second fiddle to Bob. The same stories about traveling happened in country music as well as rock music.

One thing I enjoy about writing this blog is discovering how these musical stories continue long after the records stop turning. Bob Wills’ early years with the Light Crust Doughboys helped shape the music he would later make famous with the Texas Playboys. Years later, one of my readers, Phil Strawn, shared that his father, Johnny Strawn, also played with the Light Crust Doughboys and even has a photograph of himself with Bob Wills with a fiddle Wills gave him. Moments like that remind me that music history isn’t just found in books. Sometimes it’s sitting in a family photo album, waiting for someone to share another piece of the story.

The Rolling Stones and Waylon Jennings doing their tribute to Bob Wills

Here is Waylon Jennings with the same song

Stay A Little Longer

Oh, gather ’round friends, why hurry
Let’s all stay a little longer

You ought to see my blue-eyed Sally
She lives a way down on Shinbone Alley
The number on the gate, the number on the door
And the next house over is the grocery store

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Can’t go home if you’re going by the mill
‘Cause the bridge washed out at the bottom of the hill
Big creek’s up, and the big creek’s level
Plow my corn with a double shovel

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer (yeah)

Sitting in the window, singing to my love
When slop bucket fell from the window up above
Mule and the grasshopper eating ice cream
Mule got sick and they laid him on the green

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Grab your girl and pat her on the head
If she don’t like biscuits, feed her cornbread
The girls around big creek, about half grown
They jump on a man like a dog on a bone

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don’t see why you don’t stay a little longer

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

42 thoughts on “Bob Wills – Stay a Little Longer”

  1. Pingback: Bob Wills – Stay a Little Longer – MobsterTiger

  2. I started assembling a list of my favorite guitarists one day. Eldon Shamblin is on that list. Put him together with Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar and you may have the origin of the twin guitar sound. I love this rendition of “Stay All Night” when Wills had a horn section.

    In the 1980s, Kaleidoscope Records (El Cerrito CA) released a bunch of recordings from Bob Wills known as the Tiffany Transcriptions – all recorded in 1946-47 for radio syndication.

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      1. Merle Haggard never collaborated directly or performed on stage with the Grateful Dead, but they covered three of his songs, Mama Tried which they played a lot, Sing Me Back Home which they played in the early 70 and I loved the version they did at Watkins Glyn and one time they played Okie from Muskogee.

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    1. Now this guy was a giant. I was at a girlfriends house in the 80s I guess…and her mom mentioned Bob Wills…I had no clue who she was talking about…I told my dad…and you would have thought I said I didn’t know who Elvis was…lol…but yea…he was huge.

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  6. I could pretty much copy and paste the comment I just left on your post about Asleep at the Wheel.

    I love the Bob Wills tribute by The Rolling Stones and Waylon Jennings. While the Stones may primarily be known for their more blues rock-oriented songs, over the decades, I’ve really come to dig their country-flavored songs. As such, it’s no coincidence one of them, “Dead Flowers,” is among my favorites.

    Mick’s voice works surprisingly well for country, and I also love the guitar fill-ins by Keith and Ronnie on their country songs.

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    2. Yep, I agree the Stones tribute works, nice to see them giving a tip o’ the Stetson to the Texas Playboys. Mick is suited for Country style singing, though he really was taking the urine on earlier songs, ie ‘Dear Doctor.’ But on his solo album I remember ‘Evening Gown’ is a straight up Country song.

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  9. You just like that up right bass start to Bob’s cut. Love this tune. It’s more jazz than country to me. Lets call it “country swing”. I always want to stay a little longer when I’m having fun and this music is fun. I’m waiting for Phil to chime in. He has first hand connections with “The King”

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      1. Good stuff fella. Waylon means every word he sings.. Love the respect these people have for the ones that came before. And yes, Wills, Hank, Woody, Duke and Louis (Probably missing a few others) should be taught in schools for what they brought to the table.

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  11. I swear I have heard his music on some old cartoons. Looked him up on imdb and didn’t find anything about that, but I did find this trivia bit:
    “Said to be first artist to use drums on the Grand Ole Opry.”

    Gentleman’s Country Music. He must have been included in Ken Burns’ series on Country Music…

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  13. Years back, when I worked at the Post Office- no, I never went Postal- a guy there had a Bob Wills tape that was handed around to all who had a Walkman. (Getting through a ten hour mail sorting shift without being bored witless required being wired up to a tape-deck of some sort otherwise work time passed as easily as centipede trying to step through a spot of treacle.) I’m no Country fan- but I appreciated them more and more after a fair few listens.

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    1. I have to remember that saying! But yes…that is why I do pay 17 bucks a month or so for audible…just to get through my car drives to work….so I get it.
      Yea I think Wills to me…represents true country and like CB said…this swing music owes a lot to jazz as well. Great musicians obbverse.

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