"Why another live record?" asks bandleader
Ray Benson in his liner notes to
Asleep at the Wheel's fourth concert disc, and he has two answers, both valid. First, with hundreds of gigs per year,
Asleep at the Wheel is essentially a live band, and live records reflect that. Second,
Benson has cooked up a reunion performance in which original bandmembers
Lucky Oceans and
LeRoy Preston sit in with the current lineup, along with departed veterans
Chris O'Connell,
Floyd Domino,
Tony Garnier, and
Tim Alexander, as well as guest stars
Tracy Byrd,
Wade Hayes,
the McGuire Sisters, and Johnny Lee Carpenter. Of course, the defining element in the group's sound remains
Benson's big baritone, which he puts at the service of many of the band's hits, including "The Letter That Johnny Walker Read," "House of Blue Lights," "Miles and Miles of Texas," "Boogie Back to Texas," and "Hot Rod Lincoln." The recordings are taken from a December 1996 club date, which gives the show an unusual intimacy. Given that warmth and the survey the album provides of the band's career,
Back to the Future Now makes a good primer of
Asleep at the Wheel, even if the question
Benson should have asked is, "Why not another live record?," to which the answer would be, "because it's redundant." ~ William Ruhlmann