Customer Reviews

Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys

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4 star:		(4)
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Ray Benson and various aggregations of Asleep at the Wheel have been making records for almost 30 years now. The truth is that there are a bunch of standards of Western Swing that just have to be done and done again. Recently he has tried to get the variety in by doing live albums, and so-called tribute albums like this one, a tribute to Bob Wills. They are a nice excuse to do covers of Bob Wills Songs that Asleep at the Wheel has already recorded.

This works well because a lot of the people he uses on the record are veterans of the Western Swing revival Merle Haggard and Ray launched in the 1970s from different directions, although you might not know it now. It works because the band sounds looser, a bit wilder, and not as concerned with perfection and style as it does on their studio records, which, by the way I think are terrific.

Of course the Amazon listing here is incorrect. All of these tunes have guests. Red Wing for example has the one the only, the Tyler Rose, the greatest living Western Swing musician, the guy that Bob Wills had play Faded Love rather than himself, Johnnie Gimble on both fiddle and Mandolin. Ray gets by the problem of the racial insensitivity of "Across the Alley from the Alamo" by having Johnny Rodriguez sing it, and Susie Bogus does a great job on the early Wills Tune "Old Fashioned Love."

Marty Stuart has always been a great musician, starting out playing in Lester Flatt's band when he was 15, and being an ace on both guitar and mandolin. Besides some good picking on some of the other tunes, he does a great version of the great tune Misery, a tune from the days of the Wills/Duncan reunion in the late 1950s and early 1960s that should be better known.

Riders in the Sky join in with the band to do a great harmony on one of Cindy Walker's masterpiece "Dusty Sky." This song is so much more powerful about the dust bowl and the farm crisis of the thirties than anything that Woody Guthrie wrote. They say Tommy Duncan who had been destroyed as a farmer by the dust bowl droughts, broke down in tears when they recorded it. On the original recording you can hear Bob Wills trying to keep him going.

Haggard, well Haggard recorded the same tune he sings on this record with Bob Wills. Can't get better than that!

Even Huey Lewis gives us a little taste of where he was in the 1970s with a great version of Will's Hubbin' It!

The only thing I don't like here is Brooks and Dunn's Corrina Corrina. It has nothing to do with Western Swing, just your country rock rendition that sounds like a thousand other top 40 country recordings, although done with flavor and a solid dance beat.

Asleep at the Wheel have never been reconstructionists. They have never tried to sound like the Texas Playboys, even in the early days when they were able to include former Texas Playboys like Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore, and others on their records. They always have tried to have a hot, jamming sound. So, they are the ideal band for this kind of tribute.
They are really, really jamming and jamming hard drawing in the talents of other pickers and singers and making this a real event.

I went to Tulsa on business a couple years back, and made a pilgrimage to Cain's Ballroom, where Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the "house band" whenever they were in town. The place was dark and dusty (I went on a Sunday morning), but I could almost hear the distant echoes of that joyful music from years gone by. Asleep at the Wheel, in my opinion, captures the exuberance of the Texas Playboys. For years, they have been at the forefront of "western swing," and they revere this material. They have also gathered some outstanding guests for this venture. Suzy Boggus singing "Old Fashioned Love" is my favorite. Boy howdy, can that lady SING?!! I've got several Bob Wills reissues and compilations; this music has the same feel, but benefits from modern recording techniques. (Bob's stuff sounds kind of "hissy and poppy" these days.) If you like that western swing - treat yourself to this CD!

I like this music better than the original sounds of Bob Wills. Ray Benson really did a good job putting this together with such people as George Strait, Garth Brooks, Huey Lewis, Brooks & Dunn, Johnny Rodriguez, Chet Atkins & many others. It really has an upbeat & spirit lifting sound that is crisp & clear. One of the best albums I have ever heard.

Ray Benson and the other members of Asleep at the Wheel had never made any secret of the fact that Bob Wills was their biggest influence, but they emphasized the point by recording two tribute albums in the nineties devoted entirely to his music, of which this is the first. Both albums featured a star-studded line-up of guests.

Big names featured here include George Strait (Big ball's in Cowtown), Vince Gill (Yearning just for you), Garth Brooks (Deep water), Dolly Parton (Billy Dale), Merle Haggard (I wonder if you feel the way I do), Huey Lewis (Hubbin' it), Brooks and Dunn (Corrine Corrina) and Willie Nelson (Still waters run the deepest). Huey and Willie also feature on Ida Red. All of their performances are superb, although my favorite track here is Old-fashioned love (Suzy Bogguss).

All the tracks here are brilliant. Your favorites may be different from mine, but if you like real country music that swings, Texas style, this is for you.

I think the 'professional' reviewer could very well be technically correct. I have serious doubts however about said reviewer's ability to be any less 'stiff' than he percieves A@TW to be. I have the kind of swing music collection you'd expect of someone who loves the music & programs & DJs his own 6 hour weekly radio show... so I tell you as a professional music lover that A@TW & their guests swing this in the best tradition- FUN! Now... if you're someone who enjoys music, & if you're someone who enjoys GOOD music, & if you're someone who can just have fun like the band & singers obviously are having fun, then BUY THIS ALBUM! & buy Ride with Bob (I will as soon as my wife gives me the money! = > ) This is a bunch of people having fun playing & singing. I especially liked Garth Brooks' & Huey Lewis' numbers, but there isn't a song on this disc that isn't excellent. I kinda wish Johnny Cash would get in on the next one... I think that'd be a kick!

Don't let the condescending pseudo-intellectual musician wannabe sour grapes babble of some of the other reviewers deter you; this is a bona fide swing band with one of the tightest and best rhythm sections around. They maintain the integrity that AATW has always had, given the huge guest list (they even overcame the obvious record company intrusion of the talentless Brooks and Dunne). Buy this record if your a true western swing fan, or if you just want to be.

As the proud son of a country/western musician, some of my fondest memories of the early 60's were tagging along with my Dad on saturday nights to various dance halls in south Texas,(Honky Tonks were weird, but civilized places in the early 60's, contrary to what you may have heard). People would slowly pour in the hall, around 7pm somebody would walk out onto the large smooth concrete dance floor and scatter sawdust, then at 730p my Dad's band would walk onto the stage and a large man, in a huge white cowboy hat with a smile just as large, would walk up to the microphone, put a fiddle under his chin, raise his bow and you knew an evening of Texas Swing was on its way. Bob Wills' Swing was meant only to accomplish two things: make you smile and dance. No silly pyrotechnics or wannabe cowboys...just fun. Thank God Asleep at the Wheel are keeping this tradition alive, at least for a little while longer. Pleasant memories of a long time ago...

Asleep At The Wheel have done a great job on the Bob Wills tribute CD. Although this is an older recording , it re-invents this Texas style music I really like and gets me back on track to start playing the good old tunes again on my fiddle..

A wonderful tribute to Bob Wills and his music. Best cut is George Strait and "Big Balls In Cowtown" which George has done for many years in his own shows. Worst cut, Garth Brooks and "Deep Water"....for a really good recording of that tune listen to George Strait sing it on his seventh album called #7...you'll hear the big difference yourself!!!

Well, while I'm disappointed, now I notice the DANCE VERSIONS also appearing here. Perhaps I should have just gotten them. I am very much a fan of Asleep at the Wheel in its early days "Comin' Right At Ya", and so on, and I like what they do now, but sometimes now days it seems to me like they are, well, too smooth, and I just don't start to stomp on the floor.

Still, the music is wondeful, and even if it's not the dance mix, it's not THAT easy to sit still while it's playing.