Vegas lounge singer John Wills dies at 50

Wednesday, July 1, 1998 | 11:45 a.m.

John Wills sure knew what he was doing when he named his popular local country-western band Family Tradition.

His uncle was the legendary Bob Wills the "King of Western Swing." His dad is Luke Wills who played guitar in Bob's band, The Texas Playboys. His other uncles, Billy Jack Wills and Johnny Lee Wills, also were members of that group.

Although John, just like his famous uncle, combined other styles of music with the country genre, he never achieved the lofty status of the late Bob Wills, who in 1993 was featured on a 29-cent U.S. postage stamp.

But in Las Vegas lounge lore, John Wills, a hulking, hard-living performer will long be remembered for keeping alive the Wills family tradition in country music from the late 1970s through the mid-90s.

John David Wills, who performed at the Flamingo Hilton, Stardust, Sam's Town, Showboat, Arizona Charlie's hotel-casinos and many other local clubs, died Thursday at Columbia Sunrise Hospital. He was 50.

The cause was complications from diabetes, friends said.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 25 years were Monday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern. Interment was at Palm Valley View Memorial Park.

Nicknamed "Big John" early in his career, Wills stood 6 feet 5 inches and weighed about 260 pounds in his prime, giving him an awesome stage presence.

"John was one of the best lounge performers in Las Vegas," said Joe Guercio, entertainment director for Arizona Charlie's. "He was a great musician who surrounded himself with the best players. And no one could play Texas swing better than John Wills."

Donna Taylor, Wills' agent since 1976, said Wills could play everything from Big Band to modern rock.

"He had the best timing in the world," said Taylor, who booked Wills into the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino a week after seeing him perform in a Sahara hotel-casino talent show.

In 1978, John Wills and Family Tradition was booked into the Flamingo Hilton lounge for a gig that lasted 58 consecutive weeks. Over the years, the group played everything from Top 40 rock to oldies to country.

Born March 2, 1948, in Fresno, Calif., Wills was raised in Tulsa, Okla. He started to play guitar, bass, keyboards and saxophone at an early age.

In 1965, Wills and his family moved to Las Vegas, where he attended Roy Martin Junior High School and later Western High.

When John was 16, Bob Wills, who had gained international fame after adding horns to his fiddle band to create a combination Big Band/country sound, brought his nephew on stage to sit in with the Texas Playboys.

"Well, I tell you, I was shaking in my boots," Wills told the Sun for a story that was published on May 15, 1981. I played one song, then had to get off the stage. And I didn't even try to sing -- no way."

In the late 1960s, Wills returned to Tulsa where he graduated from Rogers High School. Wills moved back to Las Vegas in 1976 and formed Family Tradition.

The group members changed over the years. They included Dennis Lee Mellville on guitar; Brett James on steel guitar; keyboard players Denny Coles, Denny Denman, Bob Kopak and Richard Yusco; drummers Glen "Sticks" Hill and Gary Paul; and bass players Bob Stein and Kenny Wilcox.

"John lived a wild and crazy and hard and heavy life -- he just wanted to have fun," said Denman, who performed with Family Tradition from 1985-88 and has been the group's accountant since then.

Denman, who will play piano backup for rock 'n roll legend Chuck Berry Friday and Saturday at the Hilton, first met Wills in the Midwest in the 1970s when he was the keyboard player for Spirit of St. Louis and Wills was leader of the Chicago-based band Big John and Six the Hard Way.

"John had a great wit and never forgot a joke," Denman said. "He played (what) the room (wanted). If they requested a song he didn't know the words to, John would make up the words and we'd have to wing it to keep up with him."

John Wills and Family Tradition performed with such major country artists as Janie Frickie, Dottie West, Mickey Gilley, Lynn Anderson and Roger Miller. Other local hotel-casino lounges where the group performed were the Sands, Bally's, Dunes, Golden Nugget and Frontier.

In his off-hours, Wills enjoyed trout fishing, quail hunting and golf.

Wills enjoyed drinking Crown Royal whiskey, friends said. That practice, however, is highly ill-advisable for a diabetic because the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to break down the high sugar content of alcohol.

Adult onset diabetes, though non-curable, can be controlled with exercise and diet. But Wills' destructive lifestyle fueled the disease that got the better of him. At one point, Wills weighed more than 400 pounds, friends said.

In 1996, Wills was well enough to work with his band for just one week, Denman said, noting he was unable to perform the last two years.

In addition to his father, Wills is survived by his mother, Dorothy Wills; a son, John David Wills Jr.; a daughter, Kasey Lee Wills; a brother, Luke Wills Jr.; and a sister, Joyce Lee Bouchard, all of Las Vegas.