Nashville reveres him as a country icon. But as this remarkable 10-CD box set shows, Bob Wills and his big band pitched as huge a tent for "country" as anyone before or since. Cut at the band's peak of popularity between 1946 and 1947 for a radio series, these sessions showcase hot-shit improvisers stretching out on jazz by Count Basie and blues by Memphis Minnie, as well as country classics — like "Ida Red," the song that would later inspire Chuck Berry's "Maybellene." Rock's roots are even clearer in Junior Barnard's raw guitar on "Fat Boy Rag," which moves Wills to holler "Ugly, yeah!" like it was the highest praise possible.