Asleep At The Wheel's Ray Benson still celebrating Texas swing after 55 years

It’s been a while since Asleep At The Wheel played in the Pittsburgh region, but guitarist/singer Ray Benson is quite familiar with the area.

The Texas swing band originally started in Paw Paw, West Virginia, back in 1970 before migrating to Texas a few years later. Over the years, Benson recalled shows in McKeesport, McKees Rocks (Mancini’s Lounge), Greensburg (Banjo Louie’s) and Star Lake in 2001.

”It was definitely part of our coming up, and I’m glad we’re going to get back to it,” Benson said in an phone call from Maryland last week. “… Tell the folks to come on back because we don’t want to wait another 20 years.”

Asleep At The Wheel brings their Happy Trails tour, with The Shootouts opening, to Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale on Aug. 21.

One day later, AATW releases their 27th studio album, “Riding High in Texas,” via Bismeaux Record and Signature Sounds. The 10-song album pays tribute to the Lone Star state, with guest appearances from Billy Strings and Lyle Lovett.

The 74-year-old Benson, who was born in Philadelphia, moved to Texas 50 years ago and wanted to go a little deeper with the song choices, with countless songs to choose from.

“God knows,” he said with a laugh. “What we wanted to do was try to stay away from the obvious: we’d already done ‘Miles And Miles Of Texas,’ we’ve recorded that, or ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas,’ all those standard ones.”

In a call from Maryland, Benson discussed what makes Texas special, working with Billy Strings and the band’s first TV appearance:

What do you think it is about Texas that sparks such musical inspiration?

I think the diversity of the place. We have the Hispanic cultures obviously. We have the German and the Bohemian culture that a lot of people aren’t aware of that really settled Central Texas and South Texas. And then we have the Tennessee connection, so it’s really a tapestry of American immigration that brings every different culture’s music into this amalgam, which is Texas.

Do you think that melting pot is sort of unknown? You might know that in Texas, but around the country they might not know that.

No, absolutely they don’t. So much of Texas was settled by first, well, of course, it was Mexico. It was Mexico first and then the Scotch-Irish people, from the Tennesseans and etc. But in the middle 1800s, huge German, Czechoslovakian and Bohemian migrations from the Eastern European countries that really had a huge impact on how Texas is nowadays. There are towns — New Braunfels, Fredericksburg — when I first moved to Texas 50 years ago, they still spoke German in a lot of these towns. The Czechoslovakians, some people don’t realize that Central Texas, the Czech population and Bohemia was huge.

For instance, so much of Texas is beer-drinking; the Europeans brought the whole beer culture. Then of course, you had the Baptists who were against alcohol. You have these great dividing lines in that way. And like I say, it’s a real melting pot. Then of course, a lot of people don’t even realize the Pennsylvania connection, which is: where was oil discovered? Titusville, Pennsylvania. So when the big oil boom started in the turn of the century, so much of Pennsylvania’s technical knowledge of how to get that (stuff) out of the ground. I keep telling people, don’t you realize these oil companies, Pennzoil, Quaker State, etc.? So there was a huge influx of that during the oil booms. … It’s the whole melting pot, which makes such a vibrant culture. And of course, the African-American community has just been huge in its impact on everything from culture to politics.

For this album, you pulled in some pretty big guest appearances like Billy Strings, so how did that come together?

Well, I had met Billy a number of years ago. I was producing albums, and he was involved in one. He called up, he has a thing called “Seven Weeks in County.” He decided to do this 10-minute mini-film. And he called me up and said, I need an old codger to be my cellmate. (laughs) It’s like “Hang ‘Em High,” the Clint Eastwood thing, except Billy gets arrested for something, and then they try to hang them, but somebody shoots down the thing. He just loved Westerns, I guess, and wanted to make one. And so I was cast as his cellmate. After spending two days of that, I said, hey, will you play on this record here? He said, sure, man, just send it up.

He’s such an accommodating guy for everything. Billy is today’s, and his generation’s, guitar virtuoso and so much more. His shows are much like the Grateful Dead in terms of their clientele just loves it. And his virtuosity is just incredible. … I met him when he was coming up, and I’ve always been a guitar nerd and so I was producing Jake Shimabukuro, he’s a ukulele guy. I was producing a record and Billy and him did a cut, that’s how I met him.

Is there anybody out there that you’d still like to collaborate with that you haven’t had the opportunity to yet?

Oh god, yeah. That’s my whole deal. I got into this music, into this business, as a fan. You hear somebody and you go, oh wow, I’d love to do a record with them or this, that and the other. So in terms of people, I like Sierra Farrell’s new stuff. The older folks, I have a birthday party hopefully every year, and I have people come. I had this guy Jake Worthington, a wonderful guy. He came down and sang with us. Yeah, there’s not a lack of folks of every genre.

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As a Pennsylvania native, how long did it take for you to feel like a Texan?

Well, we came down on the invitation and the encouragement of Willie Nelson. We came down because we were playing Texas music, old Texas music. When we got there, a lot of the folks went, oh man, we’re so glad you’re doing this. Nobody was doing this for 30, 40 years. The Western swing and the honky tonk country music that was part of Texas had sort of receded. They were really, it was open arms. I was really blown away by that. … When you got guys like Willie Nelson, Doug Sahm from the Sir Douglas Quintet, people like that, going, hey come on down, we love what you’re doing, the coach of the football team Darrell Royal was a legend down there and he just loved our band, so we were very, very fortunate and welcomed.

There are obviously a bunch of songs about Texas, but do you think there any good songs about our home state of Pennsylvania here?

Yeah, there’s Fred Waring and “Pennsylvania 6-5000.” But I must tell you, and you probably don’t know this, but Asleep at the Wheel’s first television appearance was in Altoona. We started in West Virginia, but it’s Paw Paw, West Virginia, it’s right there in the panhandle and in the town of Paw Paw — this is before cable — they got the Altoona television station. And at noon in 1970, they had the Big John Reilly TV show. He was the weatherman.

It was one of those things at noon, they had to fill 30 minutes. “If you’ve got a talented person in your hometown, have them come up.” And this lady in Paw Paw said, “We have some boys down here that are so good,” and we drove up in her station wagon. Now, mind you in 1970, we always played country music, had hair down, we were hippie-looking, show up to the station and they were, oh my gosh. And that’s where we played. Now they didn’t tape back then. … Whenever I played State College at the theater there, I’d mention the fact and the place just howled because evidently it was, in the early 70s, there was no cable and so they would watch the Big John Reilly show at noon. It was kind of a kitschy kind of thing. (laughs)