We knew what he meant in one sense: Asleep at the Wheel performances largely tend to follow familiar contours, and Saturday’s appearance at the Longhorn Ballroom, less than four months after the band had helped re-christen the space, was a bit shaggier than normal.
But in another sense, Saturday night was of a piece with what Benson and his multitude of collaborators have done for more than half a century — honoring the past and making it come alive in the present, albeit with a high-wattage guest star in the form of singer-songwriter and fiddle player Amanda Shires.
The occasion celebrated the release of the Lubbock native’s collaboration with the late Bobbie Nelson, Loving You, a record the pair made in 2021, roughly a year before Nelson’s passing.
The 10 songs on Loving You are a grab bag of greatness, pulling from Western swing, jazz and pop. Shires, armed with her expressive alto, imbues well-known tunes like “Summertime,” “Dream a Little Dream of Me” or “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” with fresh immediacy — and it’s the sort of passion project you’re glad was able to escape the profit-possessed music business intact.
The audience gathered at the Longhorn Ballroom wasn’t at capacity, but those in attendance were deeply appreciative of the two-hour showcase, which opened with Benson and the Wheel doling out a sparkling 40-minute set. As ever, an evening with Asleep at the Wheel is often better than 90% of any other available entertainment options.
“Tonight, we’re gonna celebrate all kinds of things,” Benson said, by way of introduction. “First, I’ve been playing here since 1974 ... [and] we’re going to pay tribute to a fine, fine woman, doing a lot of the stuff from the [Loving You] record, and a lot of stuff we love to do here at the Longhorn.”
Bouncing from “Miles and Miles to Texas” to “Bob Wills Is Still the King” to “San Antonio Rose” to “Milk Cow Blues,” Benson — joined by pianist-singer Emily Gimble (who was performing with the band for the first time in seven years), as well as an unidentified drummer, fiddler, pedal steel guitarist and upright bassist — breezily set the stage for Shires, who turned up about 45 minutes in, and immediately set to work trading lead vocal lines with Benson on “Take Me Back to Tulsa.”
“For those dragged here against their will, I’m Amanda Shires and this is Asleep at the Wheel, and everything’s gonna be alright,” she cracked as the song ended.
The night’s second half was decidedly more emotionally charged than the first, as the 41-year-old Shires outlined how she had initiated her collaboration with the then-90-year-old Bobbie Nelson. What began as Shires covering “Always on My Mind” for her 2021 solo LP Take It Like a Man blossomed into a burst of creativity.
“This is not a normal night for us.” – Ray Benson, just before he and his Asleep at the Wheel bandmates tore into Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen’s “Hot Rod Lincoln.”
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“I went down there, and brought her a pile of orchids, because that was her favorite flower,” Shires recounted of her initial visit to Austin and Arlyn Studios. After the pair cut “Mind,” Nelson told Shires: “This is the second song we’re gonna do,” meaning Gershwin’s “Summertime.” “It meant a lot to her,” Shires said.
In that moment, performing “Summertime,” Shires and the Wheel snapped into alignment, the delicately rendered accompaniment positioned just so behind her emotive rendition of the jazzy standard. It was a fleeting sensation — six songs later, Shires stopped “Over the Rainbow” midstream and requested a do-over, as the musicians got briefly discombobulated and drifted apart — but forgivable, given the one-off nature of the night (Saturday’s performance was followed by another set Sunday at Gruene Hall, the only other Loving You release concert scheduled).
On Saturday, what mattered more than precision was passion, and that was abundant. Shires spoke movingly of reaching out to Benson to inquire about performing the songs live (“This is my hero,” she said, “and it was so intimidating to even ask, and then when he said yes, I said, ‘Oh, shit.’”), and there was a palpable sense of Shires paying tribute to the state and scene that provided her with a launching pad.
At one point, she relayed an anecdote about her teenage days in the Texas Playboys, and performed “A Little Walk With You,” a song she’d once sung in the company of Leon Rausch and Tommy Allsup.
A grinning Shires looked as though she were having the time of her life, trading licks with the pedal steel player and the fiddler and even sharing a microphone with Gimble at one point. All of it served to reinforce the importance of celebrating that which inspires you — the sense of each new generation having a responsibility to acknowledge the one that came before.
What may feel fusty or boring on paper — an evening spent highlighting the bounty of treasures that is Texas music — played out as anything but. The act of one daughter of Texas paying heartfelt tribute to another was as poignant as it was deeply entertaining.
