Music

When Asleep at the Wheel decided to record a record of Texas-centric songs to commemorate the Western swing outfit spending 50 of its 55 years in the Lone Star State, Ray Benson had a simple request: “Let’s just do songs about Texas that mean something to you.”

The result is Riding High in Texas, a celebration of all things Texas, out now. The record features covers of high-profile artists and songwriters and an array of special guests across its 10 tracks, including Lyle Lovett, Brennen Leigh, and Billy Strings.

Lovett joins Asleep at the Wheel to reprise his version of “Long Tall Texan,” and Leigh contributes vocals on a cover of the Carter Family’s “Lonesome Pine Special.” Meanwhile, Strings plays guitar on the album-opening title track after Benson called in a favor with the modern-day bluegrass torchbearer.

Benson appeared in Strings’ 2024 spaghetti western video for “Seven Months in County,” playing, in Benson’s words, “the old codger to be Strings’ cellmate.” During that shoot, Benson decided Strings needed to play on “Riding High in Texas.”

“We became friendly,” Benson tells Rolling Stone. “When they booked me to do his film, I just asked him, ‘Hey, could you play on this?’ And I tell you what, that guy is busier than anybody, and he fit it in. Good thing, because I don’t play that kind of flatpicking stuff well enough.”

While the guests add intrigue and twists to the 32nd studio album for Asleep at the Wheel, the constant is the band’s fiddle-forward Western swing sound played over a series of songs that evoke the Lone Star State. Renditions of “All My Exes (Live in Texas)” and “T for Texas” lay that point bare, while covers of Guy Clark (“Texas Cookin”) and Ernest Tubb (“Texas in My Soul”) serve as reminders of Benson’s appreciation for Texas’s songwriting icons.

Asleep at the Wheel are a constantly-evolving project rather than a set-in-stone band, which is evident with the addition of Ian Stewart, who joined the band on fiddle in 2024 but quickly took over some vocal duties for the 74-year-old Benson. Riding High in Texas has Stewart swapping lead vocals with Benson, but the highlight is his fiddle playing on “Beaumont Rag,” the record’s instrumental closing track.

“Ian joined the band,” Benson says, “after I hired him as a fiddle player, but when it was obvious that he was gonna share singing, I said, ‘Bring some stuff.’ I hope that everybody who’s in this band will bring something to the table, so that I don’t have to say, ‘Do this.’ This is a collaborative thing.

“In the contest world, where the fiddlers get together, Texas goes back to some guys from the Twenties and Thirties, after Bob Wills. They were not swing fiddlers, but they had a little swing in them, and that’s what ‘Beaumont Rag’ really shows. So, I said, ‘Ian, you’re a Texas fiddler, and you’re gonna have to play that. Let’s put it on this album,’ and he worked it up real good.”

Before Riding High in Texas was released, Asleep at the Wheel already started touring the record, and they have a full schedule ahead of them, including festival stops at Austin City Limits and the Avett Brothers’ Moon Crush: Avett Moon in Miramar Beach, Florida, in October. The group was also inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in August, which Benson attributes to the band embracing the Lone Star State since relocating there in 1974.

He also says that relentless touring and a constant churn of new music help him maintain a focus, even with a catalog and accolades that could justify slowing down or retiring altogether.

“The legacy of Asleep at the Wheel, I think, is pretty firmly entrenched. But my outlets are still creating music, and bringing people together — always by collaboration,” Benson says. “I don’t see any way out of this mess unless I do something. Otherwise, I’ll feel useless.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose latest books, Never Say Never and Red Dirt Unplugged are available via Back Lounge Publishing.