Austin, TX · western swing

Asleep at the Wheel

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Texas western-swing institution — more than fifty years keeping Bob Wills's songbook alive with Grammy-stacked musicianship; a Zilker rite.

Asleep at the Wheel was founded in 1969 in Paw Paw, West Virginia, by Ray Benson and Lucky Oceans, both from Philadelphia, who soon found themselves opening for Alice Cooper and Hot Tuna in Washington, DC. Commander Cody invited the band to East Oakland, California, in 1970, and a mention by Van Morrison in Rolling Stone helped them land a deal with United Artists.

Willie Nelson invited the band to Austin in 1974, and it has been based there ever since. Guitarist and singer Ray Benson has been the constant through decades of shifting line-ups, which have typically included fiddle, steel guitar and piano alongside the rhythm section.

Their breakthrough came with the 1975 album Texas Gold and its top-ten country hit "The Letter That Johnny Walker Read", still their highest-charting single. The band has since charted more than twenty-one singles, released over twenty albums, and appeared a record ten times on Austin City Limits, alongside film roles in Roadie and Wild Texas Wind.

Their repertoire centres on western swing, particularly the music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, extended with honky-tonk, jump blues and swing-era standards. The band has recorded several albums devoted to Wills's catalogue, has won nine Grammy Awards, and their live sets place a good deal of emphasis on instrumental soloing.

Personnel has turned over repeatedly: co-founder Lucky Oceans left in the 1980s, longtime vocalist Chris O'Connell departed in 1986, and Rosie Flores joined in 1997, one of many singers to pass through the band's ranks over five decades.

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western swing