There is a moment at every good western swing show when the fiddle player leans into the microphone and lets loose an “ah-ha,” and the whole room grins at once. Greenville gets a full weekend of those moments this Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6 and 7, when the Bob Wills Fiddle Festival & Contest returns to downtown for its 12th year.
It’s an easy drive, about an hour northeast of Dallas up I-30, and much of it is free.
A little history first, because the man deserves it. James Robert Wills was born in 1905 in Kosse, Texas, the oldest of nine surviving children in a family of sharecroppers and champion fiddlers. He played with the Light Crust Doughboys in Fort Worth before breaking off in 1933 to start his own band, the Texas Playboys, in Waco.
The Playboys moved to Tulsa in the mid-1930s, and their noontime broadcasts from Cain’s Ballroom over KVOO turned Wills into a regional institution and then a national star. He took fiddle tunes, jazz, blues, big band horns and cowboy songs, threw them all on the same bandstand, and gave people something to dance to. The world called it western swing.
Wills went into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. He died in 1975, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1999. In 2011, Texas made it official, naming western swing the state’s music.
The festival keeps all of that alive in the most practical way possible, by putting fiddles in people’s hands. It was founded by Joey and Sherry McKenzie, national fiddle champions in their own right, and the contest is still the beating heart of the weekend. Fiddlers of every age come from across the country to compete, from kids barely tall enough to hold the bow to seasoned players chasing one of the festival’s custom silver buckles. The contest has traditionally been held at the Texan Theater downtown, and it’s free to watch.
Downtown fills up around it with free live music on outdoor stages, vendors, a car show and a historical exhibit on Wills’ life and career. The best plan is to park once, grab a festival map and wander.
The big shows are at the Greenville Municipal Auditorium, a 1939 Art Deco theater that has hosted everyone from Elvis Presley on down. On Friday night at 7 p.m., Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys take the stage under the direction of Jason Roberts, the two-time Grammy winner hand-picked by the Wills estate and longtime Texas Playboys singer Leon Rausch to carry the band forward. For anyone who has only heard those songs on old records, this is the night to hear them played live.
Saturday’s headliner is Texas country singer Sunny Sweeney, with the show starting at 6:30 p.m. Both concerts are ticketed, and tickets are available through the festival website.
Come hungry. Downtown Greenville has plenty of places to eat near the auditorium, and the GMA keeps a handy list of nearby restaurants for concertgoers.
Ninety-three years after Bob Wills started the Texas Playboys, Greenville is still dancing to them.
The Bob Wills Fiddle Festival & Contest runs Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6 and 7, in downtown Greenville. The Greenville Municipal Auditorium is at 2821 Washington St., (903) 457-3179.
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