Comin' Right at Ya

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A01=David Menconi
A01=Ray Benson
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Asleep at the Wheel
Austin
Austin music
Author_David Menconi
Author_Ray Benson
automatic-update
biography
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AVG
Category=AVLP
Category=AVLT
Category=AVP
COP=United States
country music
country music history
country music performers
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
memoir
music criticism
music memoir
outlaw country
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Ray Benson
softlaunch
western swing

Product details

  • ISBN 9781477326701
  • Weight: 254g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 06 Dec 2022
  • Publisher: University of Texas Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
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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.