Deep Within My Heart
A Feature Film Based on the life and music Of Bob Wills

Bob Wills. A New York Times obituary said he was “a super-giant before there were super-giants, an Elvis Presley of the 1930’s and ‘40’s.” “Until Hank Williams came along, it was just Bob Wills,” says Willie Nelson. “He was it.” And as Waylon Jennings immortalized him in his hit song, “Bob Wills is still the King!”

Bob Wills was a colorful band leader-composer-fiddler from Texas who performed throughout the Southwest for years, capturing the hearts of fans nationwide. Wills brought country music to the city and created Western Swing, a dynamic hybrid of old style blues, New Orleans jazz, and western fiddle music performed by a twenty member band infused with Chicago jazz.

For more than fifty years, Wills and his band—The Texas Playboys—kept the nation dancing and recorded over 1000 tunes, including the classics “San Antonio Rose”, “Faded Love”, “Steel Guitar Rag”, “Take Me Back to Tulsa”, “Maiden’s Prayer”, “Stay All Night”, and countless others. In fact, for a while in the early forties, his records sold better than those of any other recording artist.

But Bob Wills was more than a legendary performer. He was a man from the sharecropper’s fields who understood middle America’s hardship, sweat and pain. He was one of the common people, a favorite son who had somehow fought his way to the top. In the Depression, he was their hope when they had none; their happiness when it seemed all else had been lost. And when he played and danced and jive-talked in the dance halls of the Southwest, his music kept a desperate but determined populace on its feet. He kept their dreams alive. He was one of them.

“Deep Within My Heart” takes place just when Bob’s career is beginning, just when the conflict between Bob the successful band leader and Bob the man is in its infancy—a conflict that later almost cost him not only his happiness and dreams, but his life as well.

At the height of his success, money and fast times turn Bob away from his true self and beguiles him into becoming greedy, power hungry, hardhearted. It seems as if the common people have lost their last hero.

But then Betty, the only woman Bob ever really loved and respected, re-enters his life. With her love and mature understanding he finds himself, renews his commitment to the common people and restores his faith in a dream—a life long dream of compassion, loyalty and music.

This, then, is a story from the common people of America. It’s as pure as a folk song, as deep as the blues, as vibrant as jazz—just like Bob Wills and his music. Striking reverence for the man and sheer love for his music lives on in the hearts of middle Americans from New York to California, even today. Western Swing is still their music. Bob Wills is still their King. And this is their motion picture: “Deep Within My Heart”.