A who’s who of American popular music fills this lively memoir, in which Ray Benson recalls how a Philadelphia Jewish hippie and his bandmates in Asleep at the Wheel turned on generations of rock and country fans to Bob Wills-style Western swing. A six-foot-seven-inch Jewish hippie from Philadelphia starts a Western swing band in 1970, when country fans hate hippies and Western swing. It sounds like a joke but—more than forty years, twenty-five albums, and ten Grammy Awards later—Asleep at the Wheel is still drawing crowds around the world. The roster of musicians who’ve shared a stage with the Wheel is a who’s who of American popular music—Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, George Strait, Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, and so many more. And the bandleader who’s brought them all together is the hippie that claimed Bob Wills’s boots: Ray Benson.
In this hugely entertaining memoir, Benson looks back over his life and wild ride with Asleep at the Wheel from the band’s beginning in Paw Paw, West Virginia, through its many years as a Texas institution. He vividly recalls spending decades in a touring band, with all the inevitable ups and downs and changes in personnel, and describes the making of classic albums such as Willie and the Wheel and Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. The ultimate music industry insider, Benson explains better than anyone else how the Wheel got rock hipsters and die-hard country fans to love groovy new-old Western swing. Decades later, they still do.
Ray Benson cofounded Asleep at the Wheel in 1970 and is the only remaining original band member. When he isn’t playing with the Wheel, he’s producing records, TV shows, and commercials; acting in movies; doing voice-over work; running a studio; and raising funds for numerous charities. He was named “Official Texas State Musician” in 2004 and “Texan of the Year” in 2011.
A former contributing editor for No Depression magazine, David Menconi has been the music critic at the Raleigh News & Observer since 1991. He is the author of Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown and coeditor of the American Music Series for the University of Texas Press.
Table of Contents
Prologue: February 15, 1979
Friday's Child
You Get a Smile Every Time with the Heads-up Taste of a Ballantine
Bright Lights, Big Cities
Almost Heaven, West Virginia
A Name of Our Own
Asleep at the Wheel Goes to Washington
Go West, Young Man (and Woman)
On the Road Again
Into the Mystic with "The Beatles of Western Swing"
Austin Calling
On the Bus
Spinning Texas Gold
"Framed"
Deadly Sins
Write Your Own Song
The Zen of Willie
The Film Industry Is a Series of Peaks and Valleys
615 Blues
Ride with Bob
Ride with Job
Into the Black
Epilogue: Bringing It All Back Home
Acknowledgments
Index
What People are Saying About This
Dolly Parton
Ray Benson is something—creative, fun, entertaining—you’ll love this book!
Richard Linklater
It's hard to miss big Ray Benson in Austin, Texas. And there is no missing his love for the music of his adopted state of Texas. Enjoy his improbable story.
Willie Nelson
I’ve known Ray Benson for over forty years and never could figure out how he does all he does while asleep at the wheel! This book, however, tells how it all went down!
