Tex Williams

Sol 'Tex' Williams was born in Ramsey, Illinois. In the 1940s, 'western swing' music was at its peak, and among the more popular performers were Bob Wills and Spade Cooley. Tex Williams was the lead vocalist and guitar player with Cooley's band, and he and several of the members left to form an outfit called 'Tex Williams and the Western Caravan' around 1946. Their biggest hit, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke (That Cigarette)" came out a couple years later. "Smoke" was written by Merle Travis for Williams, and was Capitol Records first million seller.

Earlier, Williams had done some tunes in a couple of sagebrush yarns --- as a member of 'The Big Slicker Quartet' and lead singer in Buster Crabbe's DEVIL RIDERS (PRC, 1943) and an unbilled singer in The Texas Rangers' FIGHTING VALLEY (PRC, 1943).

Universal cancelled the Johnny Mack Brown B westerns in the early 1940s. They tried a few more oater series starring the likes of Rod Cameron and Kirby Grant, but Universal lost interest in doing cowboy films and opted to phase themselves out of the B western programmer. In 1949, Universal, then calling itself Universal-International, began a series of musical featurettes (shorts) starring Tex Williams, along with Deuce Spriggins and Smokey Rogers.

As expected, the musical portions were all new. But most of the action was from stock footage: when Williams rode a palomino, Universal used material from their Johnny Mack Brown films; when Williams rode a paint, Universal added liberal doses of action culled from the 1937-1939 Bob Baker adventures.

Pure guess on my part, but the studio may have felt that the Williams shorts would lure western swing fans to theaters in the South and West. Secondly, TV had arrived, and perhaps Universal was noticing a negative impact at the box office.

The Williams musical featurettes weren't the first of their kind. Ray Whitley sang his way through eighteen shorts at RKO which were released from 1938-1942 - these were churned out while Whitley was at RKO doing sidekick duties with George O'Brien and Tim Holt.

By 1951, and after less than a dozen shorts were released, Universal dropped the series. Les Adams notes that Universal-International also took most of the Williams musical featurettes, pasted two of them together, and sent them back out again as features titled TALES OF THE WEST (Numbers 1-2-3-4).

The "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke" singer had suffered from a year long battle with cancer and had been hospitalized several times, including surgery to remove his bladder. He passed away due to kidney failure at the Newhall (California) Community Hospital on October 11, 1985.

Williams' impact as a cinema range hero was of minor importance, as he rode across the screen in the waning days of the B oater. However, Tex had a good voice, and if he had made films a dozen years earlier, he might have developed into a popular singin' cowboy.

Received an e-mail in 2001 that a relative of Tex was planning a Tex Williams Museum in Ramsey, Illinois - on the next webpage, there's info on Hugh Craig of Ramsey, Illinois and the museum.

Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on Tex Williams: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931793/

Let's use ample amounts of stock footage to keep the costs down!

As mentioned above, Tex sometimes rode a palomino and wore a costume like Johnny Mack Brown so that Universal could utilize footage from their earlier JMB oaters. In other shorts, Williams rode a paint and wore a Bob Baker uniform, so that Bob Baker stock footage could be utilized.

Below is an example with both Baker and Williams wearing buckskins and a light colored hat.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above is singing cowboy Bob Baker serenading Cecelia Callejo in OUTLAW EXPRESS (Universal, 1938).

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above from left to right are Williams, Donna Martell, Deuce Spriggins, and prone is Harry Lauter in READY TO RIDE (1949). The shirt on Tex appears to be the same one that Baker wore.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above is the title lobby card for Williams' SOUTH OF SANTE FE (U-I, 1949) with Tex riding a paint to match footage from Bob Baker's earlier series at Universal. Notice the spelling error - should be SantA Fe, not SantE Fe.

(Courtesy of Donna Martell and Jim Hamby)

Above still from SOUTH OF SANTE FE (U-I, 1949), and from left to right are: Forest Matthews, Smokey Rogers, Deuce Spriggins, Donna Martell and Williams. Les Adams adds that Donna Martell appeared in six of the Williams shorts which were released from 1949-1951.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above - Monte Montague jaws with Tex in a scene from FARGO PHANTOM (U-I, 1950), which used footage from Bob Baker's PHANTOM STAGE (Universal, 1939).

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Left to right are Deuce Spriggins, Tex Williams and Smokey Rogers.