Ray Benson

Ray Benson

DRIVING SOLO
Asleep At the Wheel Frontman Ray Benson Steers His Own Course on Beyond Time
One of the pleasant surprises of 2003 has to be Beyond Time, the solo debut from Asleep At the Wheel founder/leader Ray Benson. The captain of the long-running western swingers has, without much ado, become one fine crooner, and the mellow, sometimes funky, sometimes bluesy fare on his album suits his warm, engaging baritone voice to a tee. The lush arrangements evoke giants such as Nelson Riddle and Owen Bradley -- the album-opening "Sorry" could have a been a Patsy Cline demo in another day -- and the writing resonates with the craftsmanship and soul of the great pop songwriters of yore. The old Wheel magic continues with some powerhouse cameos: Dolly Parton adds sizzle to a prototypical western swing number, "Leave That Cowboy Alone," while the low-down, brokenhearted blues "Clearing Up to Be Cloudy" finds Delbert McClinton working up some vocal steam with Benson, as guitarist Jimmie Vaughan heats things up with some searing blues licks. Barnes & Noble.com's David McGee checked in with Benson, who spoke from his Bismeaux Recording Studio in Austin and reflected on the path he took to get Beyond Time.

Barnes & Noble.com: Were you concerned about making a record that wasn't an Asleep At the Wheel record?

Ray Benson: Not at all. I was kinda relieved. The one thing is that I don't have a place in country radio anymore and don't want a place there anymore, so I have nothing to lose. Our fans still come out to see us because we're a really good musical group that puts on a great show, and also you can't get what we do anywhere but here. So I wasn't concerned at all about diverging from Asleep At the Wheel. I still got my day job, though.

B&N.com: Tell me the meaning of the title, Beyond Time. I know there must be some story behind it.

RB: Actually, I was going to call it About Time, but a friend cornered me and said that was too flip. So she said I should call it Beyond Time, and I thought, Yeah, that's what it is. Forget about what year it is; this is what the music is.

B&N.com: This album feels whole; every piece fits. You're working in different styles, but as a whole, the disc has a good, mellow feel about it.

RB: Yeah, the mellow thing's what I wanted -- a smooth, mellow kind of feel. That was the whole thing; that's where my voice is.

B&N.com: You know, you've become a great crooner. Your voice is conversational, it's tuneful, it's intimate. The way you work within your limits reminds me of the way Tony Bennett works today. He doesn't have that big, booming voice he had when he was in his 20s, but he's really learned to master subtlety and nuance within his range.

RB: That's as high a compliment as I can be paid, so I will take it! That's what it's all about. That was the goal. It's been a long journey to learn how to sing. I was blessed with a natural voice, but it took a while for me to learn how to use it. And that has been the 200-plus nights a year on the road that has done that. That's where I've learned how to sing. When I started, my two singing idols were Ernest Tubb and Bob Dylan -- not because they were great singers but because they sang as they talked. Ernest would sing and then talk, and it was the same damn voice. That's what I really like about those guys.

B&N.com: Another aspect of this is that you pay respect to some artists whose music has made an impact on you. Right from the get-go, with "Sorry," we hear echoes of Patsy Cline and Owen Bradley; later on, you have an instrumental inspired by Chet Atkins ("Ain't Chet Yet"). Were those touches part of your design for this album?

RB: Well it wasn't by design, but it came out that way because that's who I am. I study this music, so that's always been what I've done, whether it's Asleep At the Wheel with Bob Wills or even a more obscure guy. Influences, the roots, are very important to me. When you can rely on the roots, you come up with some strong music.

B&N.com: Your lyrics here are also very meaningful and striking, such as those for "Small Town and "Hands of Time." What inspired the lyrics for "Small Town"?

RB: I grew up in a small town; guys in the band are from small towns; we play a lot of small towns. And the view from the bandstand is pretty amazing -- you get to watch the social interaction. Songwriters are all voyeurs, of course, so to sit there and watch the whole deal is a good source of ideas. The idea came to me when we were in the hometown of my fiddle player, Lampassas, Texas, and it had a hole in one of the signs from a shotgun. I was talking to him about growing up there and he was telling me about getting in trouble for drinking a beer in a car. I said, "Yeah, it ain't hard to get into trouble in a small town," and went, "Yeeaah." Then the whole plight of small towns came to mind: Main Street's gone, there's a Wal-Mart Super Center in between two small towns. It's amazing. I started the band when we lived in Quapaw, West Virginia, and the dynamics of that town of 500 people were amazing: that whole thing about young people leaving because there's nothing there for 'em, and the closeness of it, almost suffocating. It's like a Tennessee Williams play.

B&N.com: Everyone thinks they know everyone's business.

RB: They sure do. And even if they don't, they make it up. Those are the people who live those lives of quiet desperation. It's intriguing to me. So I wrote that into a song. It's what America was built on, for better or for worse. There's bad parts and good parts. All I was doing was commenting from a young person's point of view.

B&N.com: In your notes to the song "Hands of Time" you comment that you find "great beauty in mortality." How is that revelation reflected in that song?

RB: You go to L.A. and pick up a magazine and there's 45 pages of cosmetic surgeries and everyone wants to be 23 years old. And I kept thinking that the one certainty in life is death, regardless of what they say about taxes. My dad had passed away, and he was 87, almost 88, and I was very relieved [when] he passed away because he was suffering. He was done; he was finished; it was over. I started looking at the obituaries and noticed that most men didn't live past 88 years old. That's an incredibly long life in the span of things. But a lot of my friends talk about beating death and I go, No, no, that's the last great adventure. I don't know the answer. I don't know anything more except that it's going to happen. I certainly don't fear it. What's the expression? I'm not afraid of death; I'm afraid of dying. So I felt I didn't want to turn back the hands of time; I want the hands of time to continue to move forward. I'm 52 years old and I don't enjoy the physical deterioration that's going on, but I really do enjoy the fact that I know this journey goes somewhere.

B&N.com: You've got some interesting guests on the album -- you've got Dolly Parton and Jimmie Vaughan showing up twice. But you really took a chance with him and Delbert on that last cut, "Clearing Up to Be Cloudy," because, man, that song's right in Delbert's wheelhouse, and with Jimmie wailing away there too, they threaten to blow you out of the water!

RB: I think they did. I always think my voice is down there, then Delbert opens his mouth and I'm like a choirboy. But I think I pulled it off. They're good friends. Jimmie -- I got him his first record deal, and he lives near me. There's nobody who plays the blues as real as Jimmie Vaughan.

B&N.com: Your duet with Dolly Parton on "Leave That Cowboy Alone" is a song you wrote in 1978 for a TV movie. Did you re-record it for this album?

RB: We had never recorded it. We did it on a movie, but it cut off where the movie cut off. We were supposed to do an album together in '92, but it didn't happen. So this was my chance to sing a song I wrote with Dolly. I wanted somebody to start the rumor that I was Dolly's boyfriend, so I thought this was a good way to get it going. Good stretch, Ray. That's a western swing kind of song, and the only trepidation I had about the whole album was whether it was cool to put that song on there. But after I heard it I knew it belonged.

June 19, 2003