Asleep At The Wheel Still The King - Celebrating The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys (CD)

(Bismeaux Records) 22 tracks, 6-panel digisleeve with 20 page booklet

Nine-time GRAMMY Award winner Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel honor the legendary Bob Wills - one of the few artists to be inducted into both the Country Music and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

For more than 40 years, Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel have been championing the genre of Western Swing and bringing the tradition of Bob Wills into the 21st century. This album is their third tribute album to Bob Wills. "Ride with Bob" from 1998 and "A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills" won four GRAMMY Awards and sold over half a million copies in total.

Artists from a wide range of genres were involved in the recording of the new album, including Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, Jamey Johnson , Merle Haggard, George Strait, The Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Old Crow Medicine Show and Lyle Lovett.

Bob Wills (1905-1975) was often referred to as "The King of Western Swing". Together with his Texas Playboys, he played thousands of concerts over almost six decades and sold exceptionally well, especially in the 30s and 40s. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys were the early stars of American country music and occasionally played pop and jazz songs as a dance band.

Asleep at the Wheel from Austin, Texas, won nine GRAMMY Awards, released more than 20 studio albums and had over 20 singles on the Billboard Country Charts. In 1971, they signed their first record deal after Van Morrison said in a Rolling Stone interview that "Asleep At The Wheel play great country music"!

Asleep At The Wheel

Mitglieder: Ray Benson, Gesang, Gitarre- Chris O`Connell, Gesang, Gitarre- Tony Garnier, Bass- Danny Levin, Fiddle, Mandoline- Lucky Oceans, Steel Guitar- Leroy Preston, Gesang, Gitarre, Schlagzeug- Link Davis,Jr., Fiddle, Saxophon- Floyd Domino, Keyboards- Bill Mabry, Fiddle- Gene Dobkin, Gesang, Bass- Reuben Gosfield, Steel Guitar- Richard Casanova, Fiddle- Scott Hennige, Schlagzeug- Ed Vizard, Tenor Saxophon- Patrick Ryan, Saxophon, Klarinette- Chris York, Schlagzeug- Andy Stein, Fiddle, Saxophon-John Nicholas, Gitarre, Piano, Gesang- Spencer Starnes, Bass- Fran Christina, Schlagzeug

Record Labels: United Artists, Epic, Capitol, MCA
Erster Hit: Choo Choo Ch'Boogie (1974)
Erster Top Ten Hit: The Letter That Johnny Walker Read (1975)

Asleep At The Wheel, eine 1970 in West Virginia gegründete Western Swing Band, die später nach San Francisco und schließlich 1974 nach Texas zog. Am Anfang noch ganz der Western Swing Tradition verpflichtet, begann die Gruppe später mit Elementen aus dem Jazz zu experimentieren, ohne jedoch den Swing ganz abschütteln zu können- dafür sorgte immer wieder als Gast der Ex-Texas-Playboy Johnny Gimble. Neben Commander Cody und seinen Lost Planet Airmen war Asleep At The Wheel Anfang der 70er Jahre maßgeblich an der Wiederbelebung des Western Swing beteiligt. Mit dem Ende der 70er Jahre war die Gruppe dann kaum noch im Gespräch. Erst 1986 erschien wieder eine neue L.P. von Asleep At The Wheel, die jedoch wenig Aufsehen erregte und die auch kaum an die Qualität der Einspielungen aus den 70er Jahren anknüpfen konnte. 1987 dann, zurückgekehrt zu Epic, brachte die Gruppe ihre Musik wieder auf den Punkt und hatte Erfolge.

Asleep At The Wheel

  Take Me Back To Tulsa

In these times when absolutely every note that Bob Wills, Milton Brown, and Cliff Bruner recorded is available on Bear Family and other labels, it's worth remembering that, in 1973, western swing was woefully hard to find on records. A few various artists' compilations and budget albums were about the extent of it. Bob Wills' then-current albums on Kapp were no incentive for anyone to go in search of his music; a bigger incentive came from Merle Haggard's 1970 album 'Tribute To The Best Damn Fiddle Player In The World.' The San Francisco western swing/honky tonk revival noted by a 'Billboard'correspondent in mid-1972 had already seen revivalist albums with a counter-culture twist released by Dan Hicks and Commander Cody. Just behind them came Asleep at the Wheel. On the east coast, they'd opened for Alice Cooper and other acts before the Commander told them to come west. "I demoed Asleep at the Wheel for Jerry Wexler at Atlantic," said group leader Ray Benson. "We sent it in and I got it back and he said, 'It's very nice but the lead guitar player needs work.' He was right. So I went to work." Then, in aninterview a couple of years later, Van Morrison said, "...there's some relatively unknown group around that I really dig. Asleep at the Wheel plays great country music." That was enough to send the record labels in search of the Wheel. Former Cricket Tommy Allsup landed the deal for United Artists.

Like many of Bob Wills' best and best-known songs, Take Me Back To Tulsa had been a fiddle tune, known as Take Me Back To Texas before Wills moved to KVOO Tulsa. He recorded it during several days of Dallas sessions in February 1941 that resulted in a plethora of transcendently great music. Of course, Ray Benson couldn't hope to match the droll, inebriate charm of Wills' vocalist, Tommy Duncan. Who could? Soon after the Wheel's first LP came out, Willie Nelson persuaded them to join the nascent Austin scene. "He heard this young band, a long-haired band, was playing Bob Wills' music," Ray Benson said later. "He was just very curious. That was in '73, and he was one of the guys who convinced me to move to Texas. We were living in California at the time. He put us on shows and introduced us around." Forty-two years and one hundred band members later, Asleep at the Wheel is still at it, and still based in Austin. Their 2009 album with Nelson, 'Willie And The Wheel,' reached #13 on the country album charts and won a Grammy.

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