Asleep at the Wheel has been making the best of Western swing, boogie, and American roots music for more than 25 albums and 40 years now, with hits from 1974’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” to their brand new album, Still The King. The band has won nine Grammy awards. The Americana Music Awards honored them for Lifetime Achievement in Performance. “Everything this act has ever released is simply spectacular,” says Billboard Magazine. They’re a road band in the tradition of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, playing close to 250 dates a year. Reuter’s called them “one of the best live acts in the business.” The current incarnation of the band, from newest to most senior, features Katie Holmes on fiddle and vocals, Dan Walton on piano and vocals, Eddie Rivers on steel guitar and saxophone, David Miller on bass and vocals, David Sanger on drums, and the incomparable Ray Benson on guitar and vocals.
 
Ray co-founded the band in Paw Paw, West Virginia in 1969; they opened for Alice Cooper and Hot Tuna in Washington, D.C. soon after; and in 1970 they moved to East Oakland. A kind word from Van Morrison in a Rolling Stone article helped land them a record deal, and after releasing Comin’ Right At Ya in 1973, they moved to Austin at the invitation of Willie Nelson. Since then, they’ve just kept on truckin’, from Route 66 to the Kennedy Center. They played the premier episode of Austin City Limits, and Ray co-wrote A Ride with Bob: The Bob Wills Musical, which has entertained audiences in Texas and beyond. “It’s been an amazing ride. From Paw Paw to San Francisco to Austin, we’ve seen it all,” Ray says. “We were too country for the rock folks and we were too long-haired for the country folks. But everybody got over it once the music started playing.” If you like what Ray calls “jazz with a cowboy hat,” there’s no better band to play it than Asleep at the Wheel!

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