Leon McAuliffe Biography

Leon McAuliffe Biography

Leon McAuliffe (1917-1988) was a Western swing musician from Houston, Texas. He is famous for his steel guitar solos with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, inspiring Wills's phrase "Take it away, Leon." McAuliffe, at age 16, first played with the Light Crust Doughboy, playing both rhythm guitar and steel guitar. In 1935, at age 18, he went on to play with Bob Wills in Tulsa. He stayed with Wills until World War II. While with Wills he helped compose "San Antonio Rose". He in more noted, however, for his most famous composition, "Steel Guitar Rag", and his playing, along with that of Bob Dunn (Light Crust Doughboys), that popularized the steel guitar in the United States. His playing (and Dunn's) is also credited with inspiring the rhythm and blues electric guitar style occurring some twenty years later. After the war, McAuliffe returned to Tulsa, forming his Western swing band and releasing a number of recordings, including "Panhandle Rag" (Columbia 20546) which reached #6 in 1949. McAuliffe soon opened his Cimarron Ballroom in the remodeled Akdar Shrine Mosque in Tulsa. He and his band recorded several song as Leon McAuliffe and his Cimarron Boys named for the ballroom. He also opened a recording studio, Cimarron Records.