The Greatest Oldies Music

Country

WRITING A SARDONIC JAB ON AN AIRPLANE ABOUT THE AUSTIN MUSIC SCENE, WAYLON JENNINGS ACCIDENTALLY CRAFTED AN ANTHEM THAT CROWNED BOB WILLS KING FOR ETERNITY.Boarding a flight between Dallas and Austin, Waylon Jennings tossed off a tongue-in-cheek poke at his buddy Willie Nelson and the burgeoning, self-satisfied Austin scene that fancied itself the fresh new frontier of country music. It was meant to be a lighthearted joke, but when he stepped onto the stage at Willie’s Texas Opry House on September 27, 1974, before a crowd packed so tightly the fire marshal couldn’t budge, the room caught fire. Stripped of Nashville gloss and driven purely by gritty pedal steel and harmonica, the song hit a raw nerve. Every single time Waylon belted out “Texas,” the building threatened to shake itself apart.Yet the song’s most famous line—declaring that “Bob Wills is still the king”—carried a profound irony, given that Waylon had once joked about only caring for a couple of Wills tracks in the first place. When Western swing pioneer Bob Wills passed away in May 1975, the tribute took on an immortal weight; the very next day, Wills’s obituary ran across America with Waylon’s lyric etched right into the text. Released as a single by November 1975, the airplane joke shot straight to No. 1, cementing a permanent bridge between Texas grit and country music history.

The Night Waylon Jennings Turned a Joke Into a Legend

Some songs arrive like confessions. Others arrive like a grin.

“Bob Wills Is Still the King” came from the second kind. Waylon Jennings later introduced it as a song he wrote on a plane between Dallas and Austin, and that detail has become part of the story because it sounds exactly like Waylon Jennings: sharp, funny, and just a little bit mischievous. The song was never meant to sound polished. It was a wink at the Texas crowd, a nod to Bob Wills, and a playful jab at the idea that Austin had somehow invented something brand new.

On September 27, 1974, Waylon Jennings performed it at the Texas Opry House in Austin, the place Willie Nelson owned. Willie Nelson later described the room as packed so tightly that even the fire marshal could not get out. It was a fitting setting for a song built on confidence and Texas pride. The audience may not have known the tune yet, but they knew the attitude immediately.

The performance landed because it had so many layers at once. It tipped its hat to Bob Wills, referenced the Grand Ole Opry, and still made room for Waylon Jennings’ plainspoken humor. There was no Nashville shine trying to soften the edges. Just pedal steel,  harmonica, and a singer who sounded like he was having the time of his life standing in Willie Nelson’s own building and saying, in effect, that the old rules still mattered.

A B-Side That Would Not Stay Small

The song first appeared as the B-side to “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”. In the usual way of things, a B-side stays in the background. This one refused. By November 1975, the single had reached No. 1 on the  country charts, and “Bob Wills Is Still the King” had already become the part listeners remembered. It was not just a regional joke anymore. It was an anthem with a grin on its face.

Years later, a television host asked Waylon Jennings whether he had grown up as a Bob Wills fan. The room laughed when Waylon Jennings answered that he was not, then added that he liked two of Bob Wills’ songs. That line mattered because it exposed the whole joke: Waylon Jennings was never pretending to be a devoted disciple. He was being honest, funny, and loyal in his own way.

Why the Song Still Feels Alive

Bob Wills had died in May 1975, and the next day an obituary ran with a verse of Waylon Jennings’ song inside it. That detail says a lot about the power of the song. It had already moved beyond novelty. It had become part of the language around Bob Wills himself.

Waylon Jennings did not build the song to flatter everyone. He built it to make a point, to tease his friend Willie Nelson, and to remind anyone listening that Texas music had a long memory. That is why the song still holds up. It sounds like a joke at first, then like history, then like a small act of love.

Every time Waylon Jennings sang it, the room seemed to come apart.

That is what great country songs sometimes do. They start as a joke on a plane and end up as the thing people remember forever.

 

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