Bob Wills, Maiden’s Prayer (Big band rendition)

Bob Wills – Maiden’s Prayer, 1941 In a 1977 interview with Chris Tyle and Hal Smith, Danny Alguire reminisces that Wills was “supremely happy” with the eight-piece horn section of four saxes, three trumpets and trombone that he had grafted onto his Western Swing orchestra. Wills built the Texas Playboys into a potent ensemble equivalent to the well-known dance bands thanks to fulsome arrangements like this one. Though Alguire and friend Benny Strickler were not present on this Dallas recording session it’s certainly one of the charts of the kind they played during their eleven-month tenure with Wills’ so-called “Tulsa Orchestra,” 1941-42. Wills first version of “Maiden’s Prayer” in 1935 as a somber Texas fiddle tune with a string band but NO horns. This luscious arrangement is strictly a big band chart containing NO fiddles, NO steel guitar nor string band. Danny recalls playing a massive Tulsa gala ball where the eighteen-piece Texas Playboys orchestra decisively bested a “good hotel-style band” from Dallas run by George “Spike” Hamilton, a composer, conductor, radio performer and father of actor, George Hamilton. Danny asserts that playing music associated with Artie Shaw (“Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”) and the Bob Crosby Orchestra (“South Ramparts Street Parade”) “we cut ‘em to ribbons.” More from Dallas 1941, Tommy Duncan vocals: Maiden’s Prayer (complete) https://youtu.be/Sg61q8JeJc4?si=sGb1i_D-XhdJbS2e Oh, You Pretty Woman https://youtu.be/VqS9wuSctl8?si=THW32moS22T5rDO8 Cherokee Maiden https://youtu.be/0LByr0Qf4x8?si=Uxr_egviVmWnzCFR Maiden’s Prayer (fiddle band 1935) https://youtu.be/8QvWw2ICxTU?si=6-Y0-1fHYeLyErHW New San Antonio Rose (Sagniaw, Tx 1940) https://youtu.be/snMQeWdqwmA?si=ukR8roLiY6iJlmRA More about Danny Alguire: http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/99401.html https://syncopatedtimes.com/dust-bowl-to-disney-the-lost-memoir-of-danny-alguire/ http://bearmanormedia.com/ http://jazzhotbigstep.com/Danny_Remembered_by_Chris.PDF http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/89801.html The Benny Strickler Story – Tulsa (A behind-the-scenes view of the Texas Playboys.) Part One http://jazzhotbigstep.com/STRICKLER%20_Pgms/Benny%20Strickler%20Story%202A.mp3 Part Two http://jazzhotbigstep.com/STRICKLER%20_Pgms/Benny%20Strickler%20Story%202B.mp3

Added 4 Apr 2026