Abilene Reporter-News
Sunday, December 24, 1995

Slim Fit
Legendary Abilene singer is honored posthumously as radio disc jockey

By BOB LAPHAM
Arts Editor

It may come as a surprise to old-time West Texas country music fans when the late Slim Willet is inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame next March.

Most folks who can remember back 30 to 50 years would've figured ol' Slim to have been a charter member among the few doezen elite DJs, living and dead, whose exploits are stored in Nashville.

A bronze plaque with Willet's image has been struck to hang permanently there. Jimmie Moore, Slim's widow, has been given a copy.

Willet was a brief success here as a performer, and later became a major regional promoter of new and established talent at his Big State Jamboree, held in the old Fair Park Auditorium in what is now Rose Park.

Leaning tower of Fair Park

In the early 1950s, Willet convinced authorieis to let him re-open, however briefly, the auditorium which was a construction nightmare. One corner of the structure sank shortly after it was built during the 1920s.

Before it was deemed unsafe for the last time, Willet brought huge acts to the Fair Park, like Slim Whitman, Carl Smith, George Morgan, Hank Locklin, Johnny Horton and hot new talent like Ray Price, the Singin' Cherokee who became a major country-crossover artist in the late 1960s.

"Slim and I were big buddies," Price told the Reporter-News' Bill Whitaker 10 years ago. "He was a jovial, happy kind of person, kind of a hyper person (who was) go-go all the time."

Price, who will be among the featured performers at the Rehab Telethon here Jan. 13, was one of more than 100 artists to record songwriter Willet's great hit, "Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes." The song sold millions of copies, both country and pop, highlighted in 1953 by Perry Como's No. 1 gold recording for RCA.

A tool-pushing pinball millionaire

Willet was a prolific songwriter during the early 1950s. Though none got close to the fame and fortune that "Don't Let the Stars" brought him, there were regional classics like "I'm a Tool Pusher from Snyder," "Love's Prison," and his earliest success, "Pinball Millionaire."

Willet recorded most of these hits on a minor label, 4-Star Records. As a DJ, like contemporary singer-songwriter Bill Mack in Wichita Falls, Willet's songs got lots of play here, whether he sang them or somebody else did, such as Price and Skeeter Davis on "Stars."

Slim held a huge audience while deejaying on KRBC radio, beamed first from high atop the Windsor Hotel and later on South 14th, when TV arrived.

Willet pioneered a TV music variety show on KRBC. Old-timers remember his regulars like the Starlight Sisters--Mary (now Gilliland), Teenie and Anne Harper. They recorded with Slim, as well. So did Shorty Underwood and the Brushcutters. Shorty was a used car salesman who played a mean fiddle. His band included Tuscola's Vaughn Shileds (himself a country singer who made it solo on the Imperial Lable for a time), Jean Stansbury, Smilin' Smokey Donaldson, Georgia Underwood and pianist Price Self.

Wife, two sons survive

Slim was born Winston Moore. He married Jimmie in 1938, joined the Army during World War II (he was discharged seven months later due to health reasons), did odd jobs after that and then entered Hardin-Simmons University.

He and Jimmie had two sons. Dr. Ted Moore now is professor of industrial engineering at the University of West Virginia. As does his mother, Tim Moore still calls Abilene home. He works at the Westwood Twin for Frank Sheffield.

Sheffield remembers 40 years ago when he, Slim and others had an unofficial late-night club room at the old Saddle and Sirloin Restaurant. Lots of tales were told while jungs in paper sacks were passed around.

It was at HSU where Willet's short (he died in 1966 with a bad heart, only 46) but eventful careers would be born. He was the first manager and on-air personality at KHSU, the campus radio station. An exceptional student, he breezed through to a degree in less than three years.

He first sang before an audience at HSU chapel, and adopted his stage name there. Winston Moore became Slim (a takeoff on his portly stature) Willet (after his favorite Reporter-News comic strip, "The Willets"). He wrote his first song while a student, called "Living on the GI Bill."

Willet joined KRBC radio as a DJ and crackerjack salesman. The two who followed Moore/Willis at running KHSU in college became electronic media personalities themselves. Both also began at KRBC.

Ad-lib commercials recalled

"What I remember most was his ad-lib (radio) commercials," former KRBC and KTAB news anchor and news director Larry Fitzgerald said. "They would go on and on, sometimes for three or four minutes. But slim made them entertaining."

He recalled when Willet made a deal with Col. Tom Parker and brought Elvis Presley to the Fair Park Auditorium. That was in 1954, one of the King's first appearances in Texas.

Slim had Elvis out at the radio station during the day, interviewing him.

Fitzgerald produced Willet's TV show for a couple years.

"I remember the Gatlin Brothers on the show, in their little cowboy suits. They couldn't have been more than 5, 6 or 7." They also lived in Abilene at the time.

James Hallmark, now director of media relations for West Texas Rehabilitation Center, also went from KHSU to KRBC, and later to KRBC-TV news.

Leggett Drive & 10 grand

Hallmark remembers enjoying coffee breaks at the station with Willet, who with all the trappings of a showman had a shrewd businessman's reputation.

Hallmark one day asked Slim why he still felt he had to do all those showy things, like wearing gaudy suits and walking on his hands while pocket changed spilled out on the stage.

Slim gave Hallmark a wry grin and replied, "because I like having $10,000 in the bank and living on Leggett Drive."

In the mid-1950s, $10,000 free and clear was a small fortune. And Leggett Drive was the elite street in Abilene, before River Oaks and Tanglewood editions kicked into high gear, and well before anyone ever dreamed of Fairway Oaks.

Today's medical miracles with heart treatment might have saved Slim. But onl July 1, 1966, after a life of marginal health done no good by a love of sharing times with drinking buddies, Willet's heart gave out.

Just 20 years before he had collected his first check as a DJ. And 13 years earlier, Slim appeared on Perry Como's NBC-TV variety show. It was at the height of Como's success with "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes."

Slim Willet left this world owning local radio station KCAD radio, out at Westgate mall.

Winston Moore was buried in his birthplace of Victor.