The Story behind the Waylon Jennings Song, “Bob Wills is Still the King”

For listeners of country music, it is no surprise that Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were very close friends. Outside of being in the country super group, The Highwaymen, along with Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, the pair also collaborated in other ways and continued a friendship throughout their work and personal lives. However, one of my favorite music anecdotes regarding their friendship is the story behind Waylon Jennings’ song, “Bob Willis is Still the King”.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of this song, I wanted to first provide a bit of background on Bob Willis to help put this story into perspective. Bob Wills was a Texas musician who specialized in a genre called Western Swing. He is often referred to as the “King of Western Swing” and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. His music and legacy inspired artists such as Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, while also helping put Texas music on the map.

Now, let’s get into the story! What appears to simply be a tribute song to Bob Willis, was actually a song Waylon Jennings wrote as a sort of good-natured jab towards his old pal Willie Nelson. In the early 1970s, Willie moved to Austin when he decided to get back into the music scene after almost retiring from music. He was constantly playing country music throughout the Austin area and was soon making a big name for himself. At the same time, Waylon Jennings was also achieving success in country music with both of them playing music that is now considered outlaw country, but he started to think that Willie was getting too consumed by his success in Austin and possibly getting a bit too big for his britches. Although Waylon Jennings never considered himself a big Bob Wills fan, he knew Willie was and decided to use that as a way to sort of humble his friend. Thus, Waylon decided to write the iconic song.

In the song, Waylon goes on to describe the characteristics of country music shows in Texas, while also paying homage to Bob Wills, because despite the fact that Waylon wasn’t the biggest Bob Wills fan, he certainly couldn’t deny his impact on Texas music. However, the portion that begins to make it more personal for Willie Nelson is the lyric “It's the home of Willie Nelson, the home of western swing, He'll be the first to tell you, Bob Wills is still the king.” Now any normal person listening to the song may think that Waylon was just trying to give his friend a shout out in the song, but with that lyric, Waylon was basically saying to Willie “although you may be finding success in the Austin music scene, you need to remember that Bob Wills is still the king”. This lyric in and of itself is the ultimate tongue-in-cheek way of telling someone to remember where they came from.

To take it a step further, Waylon Jennings had already been planning to record a live album at Nelson’s Texas Opry House so he decided to take this opportunity to perform the song for Willie on his own turf. Honestly, such a bold move! In Willie Nelson’s 2015 memoir he recalls Waylon’s performance of that song and had a good sense of humor about it. He claims “Truth be told, I really did like the song. And besides, he'd sung the gospel truth: far as I was concerned, Bob Wills was still the king.” His response shows that he understood his good friend’s humor but also knew what he was getting at with his point. Later, Waylon would even switch the lyric to “Willie what’s-his-name” to continue messing with him, of course resulting in Willie laughing along.

Aside from his jab towards Willie, Waylon also used the song as a chance to point out how ridiculous the trends in country music had gotten at that time and this was his way of reminding country music folks of the tradition behind their progressive country music. So what started as a lighthearted way to humble Willie Nelson and put the progressive country music scene into perspective, is now considered a well loved song for many country music fans.