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- When he died Sunday at 60, Billy Marshall Bowman was a warehouse manager and weekend musician. But for much of his life, he was recognized as one of America's pre-eminent steel guitar players.
During the 1950s Bowman toured the country with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and in the decade before that he performed with Johnny Wright and country singer Kitty Wells. Along the way there were gigs with other Western swing and country bands, from the Arkansas Cottonpickers to a local band called the McCoy Brothers.
"It may be born in you," Bowman said in a 1982 interview with The State. "I was born pattin' my foot. You pat your foot with Western swing. I always looked out, and if I saw somebody pattin' their foot, I said, 'Well, we're gonna do all right.' If I didn't, I said, 'Uh-oh. We're in trouble.' "
Born in Washington, Tenn., he was a son of the late Elbert S. and Gladys Barnes Bowman.
Bowman was 12 when he first heard Bob Wills with his San Antonio Rose Band and dreamed that one day he would play with "the best Western swing band" he had ever heard.
"I used to get my brother's guitar and put a dinner knife under it to raise the strings and use a Listerine bottle (as a slide)," he said. "I just liked the sound of it -- the sound of steel."
During the Texas Playboys' 1950s heyday, the band drew huge crowds and was well paid. "You make pretty good money and you spend a lot of money."
Bowman remembered a time when Wills parked his car in a lot and couldn't find it, "so he just went out and bought another car."
Times changed, however, and rock 'n' roll knocked Western Swing off center stage. "When Elvis Presley came around," he said, "there wasn't nobody around who wanted to hear steel guitar."
Bowman settled in West Columbia 22 years ago with his wife, Betty.
While he admitted he could not read music, he did compose the popular "B Bowman Hop," played by country singer Barbara Mandrell on her syndicated television show and recorded by the Steel Guitar Hall of Famers. Another one of his songs, "Billy's Bounce," was featured on Late Night with David Letterman.
Although the instrument he played changed over the years -- pedals were not part of his steel guitar until 1968 -- his talent was recognized continually. During Labor Day weekend he is scheduled to be inducted into the Western Swing Hall of Fame in California and into the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.
He was a Korean conflict special services veteran, a warehouse supervisor with Edco Chemical Corp. and a member of the American Legion.
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192 - 1989 (179 years)
