masters; it’s big and soulful, but never overbearing.” "The Texas tenor sound was an aggressive approach to whatever type of tune you were doing," Wiley told American Music Center writer Eugene Holley in a 1995 interview. "It’s a big sound, and soulful as can be. You had tenor players from that area, and you grew up hearing that sound. …I played the carnival circuit. They had what you call tent shows before the main show, and the band would play in what they called the ‘valley,’ to get the people in the crowd interested enough to come into the tent. There were no microphones out there, and you had to really dig down deep in your horn and get some volume. So it strengthened your chops and you were used to that big, full sound. When I was coming up in high school [Booker T. Washington], I played in the marching bands on the football field, and you got strong doing that too." Early career New York record producers Bob and Morty Shad decided that it was Wiley’s robust sound that would be the common denominator on the dozens of blues recordings they would issue on their Sittin' in With and Mercury labels. Thus, in addition to the numerous releases under his own name, Wiley is perhaps the most ubiquitous band leader backing a copious list of renowned Texas bluesmen, including Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, James “Widemouth” Brown, Nelson Carson, Goree Carter, Peppermint Harris, Smokey Hogg, Elmore Nixon, Teddy Reynolds and King Tut, among others. Wiley already had gained some local notoriety a year or two prior to meeting the Shads, performing throughout Texas and Louisiana with such notables as Gatemouth, Amos Milburn, Big Mama Thornton, Perry Cain and Henry Hayes. Between 1948 and 1949, Wiley appeared on several sides for Freedom, Gold Star and Jade records. But Wiley got his first taste of national fame when a 78 that he recorded in 1949 for Sittin' In With climbed the R&B charts in the spring of 1950. "Cry Cry Baby”, which featured fellow Houstonian Teddy Reynolds on piano and vocals, was a Cash Box hit, making it to No. 3 on The Billboard. As blues historian Brian Baumgartner writes in his biography of blues singer Piney Brown, “Wiley had previously been part of a massive 1950 recording session held in Houston by New York producer Bob Shad for his Sittin' In