Willie and the Wheel roll into Boone
Texas troubadour collaboration coincides with new album

By Jeff Eason

This week legendary performer and songwriter Willie Nelson will perform in Boone. But instead of his regular band, Nelson will be riding into town with fellow Texans Asleep at the Wheel.

Willie and the Wheel, the name of the new tour and the new album released this week on Bismeaux Records, will take the stage at the Holmes Convocation Center in Boone on Thursday, February 19th at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale now.

Willie Nelson has won numerous Grammy Awards as a performer and songwriter and has more than five decades in the music business. He started out as a songwriter, penning a number of hits for other artists in the 1960s including “Crazy” (Patsy Cline), “Night Life” (Ray Price), “Pretty Paper” (Roy Orbison), and “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Billy Walker).

His own hits include “Whiskey River,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (recorded with Waylon Jennings).

Nelson has also established himself as an actor and has appeared in over a dozen movies including Barbarosa, The Dukes of Hazzard and The Electric Horseman.

Asleep at the Wheel, led by singer and guitarist Ray Benson, has been a Texas swing institution since 1970. In the early days of the band, it opened shows from everyone from Alice Cooper to Hot Tuna, quickly establishing itself as “cool country,” even to hipster audiences.

Over the years the band has changed its style little, but has built a diehard fanbase through constant touring and entertaining live shows. Among the band’s albums are two tributes to the king of Texas swing, Bob Wills

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The new Willie and the Wheel album features great new renditions of classic Texas swing favorites such as “Hesitation Blues,” “Corrine, Corinna,” “I’m Sittin’ On Top of the World” and “Bring It on Down to My House.”

Tickets

Tickets for Thursday’s show featuring Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel at the Holmes Center are $35 for the floor, $28 for the middle section, and $22 for the upper section. For more information, call the Holmes Center Box Office at (828) 262-6603.