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He wasn't a Texan by birth, and he wasn't based in Texas, but Sollie Williams and his California-based, stellar musicians of the Western Caravan were, for many years, exceptional musical ambassadors of the Western Swing style that largely originated in the Lone Star state. 'Tex' honed and earned his reputation as the featured singer with the legendary WS band of Donnell 'Spade' Cooley before being fired by the mercurial Cooley and starting the Western Caravan with other Cooley musicians who had been shown the door by their former paymaster. It quickly became the premier big WS band of it's era - and the most successful, racking up over a dozen 'Hillbilly Hit Parade' chart records in just over two years. You can hear virtually all of those hits in this Jasmine collection, starting with the hymn to nicotine that kickstarted the Western Caravan's string of successes - the country AND pop chart topper 'Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)', which spent 16 weeks at # 1 in 1947 and established the template for a lot of what followed. Also included are a number of duets with his Capitol tag mates Jo Stafford and Tennessee Ernie, and Tex' second biggest hit of the period, the recitation 'Life Gets Tee-Jus, Don't It?' The 1950s saw few hits for Tex but he came back strong in the 60s with a bunch of chart records in a more contemporary country style. He passed away in the early 1970s - ironically, a victim of lung cancer - but it's the tracks featured here, and others like them, that will forever ensure that Tex Williams is remembered as one of the true greats of Western Swing. Album Tracks 1. Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) 2. I Lost My Gal from Memphis 3. Artistry in Western Swing 4. Texas in My Soul 5. Suspicion 6. Birmingham Bounce 7. Miss Molly 8. Milkman Polka 9. My Confession 10. That's What I Like About the West 11. Great Big Needle 12.
