Oklahoma State Capitol Hosts Bob Wills Day Celebration

Folks at the Oklahoma state capitol are celebrating the music and life of Bob Wills. 

Wills was a music legend who had a radio show on Tulsa radio station, KVOO that broadcast from Cain's Ballroom. His music still makes an impact on Tulsa all these years later. 

"Bob Wills is who really put Cain's Ballroom and KVOO on the map," said Tanner Messer. 

While he was from Texas, Bob Wills's career really took off in Oklahoma. He and the Texas Playboys broadcast a show on KVOO, out of Cain's Ballroom every day for six days a week. 

"That's really how Bob Wills's name got out there because back then KVOO on 1170 their signal was huge, and it would cross state lines, and be heard in Texas and Kansas, and all of the surrounding states too," Messer said. 

Tanner Messer broadcasts now on The Bull 98.5 and says Bob Wills used his show to make Cain's Ballroom and KVOO successful. 

"Some of the names that I think are synonymous with KVOO, there's Billy Parker and Paul Harvey, and of course Bob Wills," he said. 

Messer says Bob Wills has had such an impact on country music, and it's great the state is taking time to celebrate his life and his music. 

"I think it's so cool, and especially because even some of the biggest country singers that you think of, kind of from the modern age like George Strait, and Merle Haggard, from that generation, Bob Wills influenced them," he said. 

Cain's Ballroom also holds a Bob Wills tribute concert around his birthday every year.