Comin' Right at Ya : : How a Jewish Yankee Hippie Went Country, or, the Often Outrageous History of Asleep at the Wheel / / David Menconi, Ray Benson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Benson, Ray,; Menconi, David,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (182 p.)

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 nine 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue FEBRUARY 15, 1979 -- Friday’s Child -- You Get a Smile Every Ti me 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 “Th e Beatles of Western Swing” -- Austin Call ing -- 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 -- Discography -- Index