Bill Wimberly on Mercury

Bill Wimberly and the Country Rhythm Boys - At the Old Town Hall (Mercury 70900X45), 1956

In the mid 1950s, Bill Wimberly was a successful and popular western swing band leader. He recorded for Mercury with his band, the Country Rhythm Boys, and fronted the house band of the Ozark Jubilee, one of the nation's top country music TV shows. However, his own demons caused a dramatic fall down of his music career.

William Leroy "Bill" Wimberley was born in Avant, Oklahoma, on June 29, 1924, and began his career in Tulsa, a hat bed for western swing music. Wimberly (he would drop the "e" in his last name) began working with Bob and Johnnie Lee Wills in the early 1940s. He served during World War II and upon his discharge, resumed his music career.

Advertisement for a mid 1950s appearance
of Wimberly, Tex Ritter, and Smiley Burnette at the
Hitchcock County Fair in Culberson, Nebraska

By 1950, he was the leader of a band that regularly performed over KGNO in Dodge City, Kansas. By 1953, he had switched to KFH in Wichita, Kansas, heading the station’s house band, the Arkansas Valley Boys. This band had been on the station as early as 1939 but the original band had been long gone. However, KFH maintained the rights to the name and kept the group running as their house band. The line-up changed several times over the years but under the leadership of Wimberly, included top-western swing musicians of the time.

Wimberly and the band made their first recordings in 1954 for Morton Levand's independent Tex Records. By the time of their last Tex disc in 1955, the band had been renamed the "Country Rhythm Boys" and switched to Mercury in early 1956. By then, the band had been renamed Country Rhythm Boys and had become part of the Ozark Jubilee from Springfield, Missouri, an ABC televised show hosted by Red Foley. Until then, Wimberly and the band had been of regional fame but the Ozark Jubilee put them on the national scene.

They recorded several fine sides for Mercury, including the hot swinging “At the Old Town Hall” with Bill Taylor (real name Bill Tanner) on vocals. The song was written by Hugh Ashley, a songwriter and musician from Harrison, Arkansas. It was released in the summer of 1956 but did not crack the charts, as western swing's popularity had already faded then. Wimberly and the Country Rhythm Boys made their last recordings for Mercury in October 1956, which were released on an album.

Bill Wimberly and the Country Rhythm Boys
(taken from a 1956 Ozark Jubilee souvenir book)

Though, they kept on appearing at the Ozark Jubilee, alternating with Grady Martin's group as the show's house band. In 1957, Wimberly came in conflict with the law, which included his involvement in a fake Pat Boone concert in Illinois. His troubles caused him to leave the Jubilee (being replaced by Merl Lindsay) and his career was virtually over. A few recordings appeared in 1958 on Starday but those were the last he ever made. Little is known about the years after 1958 apart from the fact that he continued to be a band-leader but without much recognition.

He died largely unnoticed on June 11, 1998, in Tulsa. BACM released a 23 track CD with Wimberly's complete recordings in 2010.

Sources

• Hillbilly-Music-com entries for the KFH Arkasas Valley Boys and the Country Rhythm Boys 

• 45cat entry

• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry

• Find a Grave entry

• Kevin Coffey: "At the Old Town Hall" (2010), liner notes, British Archive of Country Music