- Born Name: Sollie Paul Williams
- Birthday: 1917-08-23 (Year-Month-Day)
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Sollie Paul Williams (August 23, 1917–October 11, 1985), known professionally as Tex Williams, was an American Western swing musician from Ramsey, Illinois.He is best known for his talking blues style; his biggest hit was the novelty song, Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette), which held the number one position on the Billboard charts for six weeks in 1947. Smoke was the No. 5 song on Billboards Top 100 list for 1947, and was No. 1 on the country chart that year. It can be heard during the opening scenes of the 2006 movie, Thank You for Smoking.Williams backing band, the Western Caravan, numbered about a dozen members. They attained an enviable level of fluid interplay between electric and steel guitars, fiddles, bass, accordion, trumpet, and other instruments (even an occasional harp). At first they recorded polkas for Capitol Records with limited success. That was changed by the success of Smoke, Smoke, Smoke written in large part by Merle Travis.Williams died of pancreatic cancer on October 11, 1985.