Old stories about Asleep At The Wheel

From the archive: Finally Tony Garnier walks over to a "no parking" sign and yanks it out of the ground, and the bus was able to back up and get freed. This was long before video cameras…

One time I was with Ray (Benson) on his bus after a gig in a hotel parking lot.  He had some um rollable inspiration on a small tray.  Actually I think it was the top of a pretzel can.  When it came time to go into the hotel, he just picked up the tray or tin, and kind of held it underneath his jacket, but it was clearly visible.  I said, "Ray, what the fuck are you doing?"  He said, (and he has this deep voice with an acquired Texas accent), "Pete, I've learned that when you're as big as I am, nobody fucks with you."

It might've been that same trip, but their first bus was a Greyhound Scenicruser, which was a semi-double-decker bus.  If you've ever seen Commander Cody's 2nd album, "Hot Licks, Cold Steel, and Trucker's Favorites," it was either that bus (which they bought from Cody or one very similar).  On the sides of the bus, it said "Asleep At The Wheel" in Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Baily (circus) lettering.  They were playing this legendary now gone coffee-house in the burbs of Philly, Bryn Mawr Pa called The Main Point, and they parked the bus in this driveway (or alley) right behind the club.  When they went to the bus after the show, another car (probably a resident) had parked in the driveway, making getting the bus out of the driveway next to impossible.  Whoever was driving (might've been Ray, though I think they had a driver) was literally inching the bus back and forth, way more times than anyone could count.  They were basically stuck in the middle of the street when a Bryn Mawr cop came driving by.  He gets out of his car and says, "Who in the hell was asleep at the wheel to get into this position?"  He wasn't expecting 10 also really huge guys in cowboy hats to come out of the bus.  Finally Tony Garnier walks over to a "no parking" sign and yanks it out of the ground, and the bus was able to back up and get freed.  This was long before video cameras, but it would've been really great to have had one.   

I still remember the first time I saw that bus. Ray's parents lived in a little suburban development that was probably built on the late '40s, early 50s with these sort of split level fairly small kind of clapboard houses.  (Reuben lived right around the corner in the same development.)  Anyway, I'd been going to that house since I was 11.  So I pull up and there's that Greyhound with that lettering and it is towering over all the houses.  And they'd been in a crash, so the door to the bus was all fucked up and one of the headlights was hanging out.  It was another time I wish I had a camera because that bus did not belong in that development. The license plate was D'WHEEL. 

Every time I see Ray I keep trying to hint to him that he should give me a job, but I don't think he has the money to do it.  He has a little record company, but he has someone to run it, his kids run the studio and he's probably just making it.  He was here playing at the Sellersville Theater (which is about 40 miles or more north of here, so I went and of course he got me wrecked.  So much for taking a drug test for the job no one offers me.  Anyway, the problem with seeing Ray (when he comes near here) at a gig is usually a million old friends of his stop by the bus, so it's rare I can talk to him.

But this time, that didn't happen and he played me some stuff from this solo album he's putting out (actually his 2nd) which was pretty interesting 'cause it's not like Asleep At The Wheel.  While there's some country influence on there, it's more like the songs he would've wrote if he hadn't gone in the Bob Wills direction.  The production on it is great.  At the same time, he's pretty cynical - No one's gonna buy the thing.  Then he was here again at the beginning of this month 'cause his older brother died and there was a memorial, so I went.  His brother had some horrible spine/nerve disease that I can't even spell, and had been in a wheelchair for like at least 10 years, maybe more.  The doctors wanted to do some other operation and he said, no, enough, that's it.  The memorial made me wish I'd known his brother better.  Then he came in town again a couple of weeks after to go to the US Open - he's always been a golf freak and was staying in Center City, near Chinatown, so we went and had dinner, and went back to where he was staying and played me a couple of more tracks from the album, but also some really good people from Austin, all different types of music.  One was kind of jazz, one was country metal and one was a sort of country Americana band.  He wants to sign them all.  Some of the playing was just incredible. 

Sometimes I wonder if I just should've moved down there when I put the record out.  There were a couple of reasons why I didn't, especially drug benefits along with the fact that as Al Kooper pointed out to me years ago, no one from Austin ever really makes it.