Tex Williams

Who was Tex Williams?

Sollie Paul Williams, known professionally as Tex Williams, was an American Western swing musician from Ramsey, Illinois.

He is best known for his talking blues style; his biggest hit was the novelty song, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!", which held the number one position on the Billboard charts for six weeks in 1947. "Smoke" was the No. 5 song on Billboard's Top 100 list for 1947, and was No. 1 on the country chart that year. It can be heard during the opening scenes of the 2006 movie, Thank You for Smoking.

Williams' backing band, the Western Caravan, numbered about a dozen members. They attained an enviable level of fluid interplay between electric and steel guitars, fiddles, bass, accordion, trumpet, and other instruments. At first they recorded polkas for Capitol Records with limited success. That was changed by the success of "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke" written in large part by Merle Travis.

In April 1956 Williams appeared on the Chrysler sponsored CBS TV broadcast "Shower of Stars".

His final radio show was a lengthy conversation taped by Bill Aken's radio program The Country Call Line while Williams was in the Newhall, California hospital.