The Guy That Started it All with his Signature Song

When Nudie was new to Hollywood he would go out to clubs to see the hottest Western Swing acts to try to convince them to buy his duds. At the top of the pack were Tex Williams and his Western Caravan.

Nudie stalked Tex, and engaged him in conversation one day at his home. Tex and Nudie instantly hit it off, and Nudie proposed that he make new suits for Tex and the band. The only problem was Nudie didn't have a proper sewing machine to get started.

Tex had a horse he wasn't particularly fond of, and made a deal with Nudie to auction off the horse and a saddle, to get the proceeds to get Nudie started. With $150 Tex put Nudie in business, a sewing machine and fabric was purchased, and Nudie got to work.

Nudie was so happy to get the job, a party broke out during the initial fitting to take the musicians' measurements. Tex and the Western Caravan were a numerous and a boisterous bunch, so soon there was a full blown hillbilly soiree atmosphere. Nudie had enlisted a friend or two to help take all the measurements, and everyone got pretty liquored up. Quite a few of the measurements like waist and inseam sizes got mixed up in the revelry.

When Nudie made the suits and presented them to the band a couple of days before the show, disaster for the tailor reared its ugly head. Few of the suits fitted properly and Nudie had to remake many of them. With less than 48 hours to work, and depleted of fabric, Nudie staged a sit in at the fabric store, until they would give him the gabardine to make the new suits on credit, just to get rid of him.

Nudie and Bobbie worked frantically to complete the suits for the show, and were rewarded for their efforts when over 3,000 folks arrived to witness Tex and his Western Caravan in their new spiffy threads. The Nudie Suits were a spectacular success and the relationship between Tex and Nudie was cemented.

This amazing clip of Tex in action late in his career shows Williams doing his signature song "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette" in a wonderful fully rhinestoned and embroidered Nudie Suit.

Ironically Tex would lose most of his Nudie Suits in a house fire, and yes, Tex died of lung cancer. Still as his deadpans in this performance - "I ain't dead yet - quite."

And anyone who wore as many Nudies as Tex did certainly lived more than most.