An Evening with Ray Benson featuring Katie Shore
An Evening with Ray Benson accompanied by Asleep at the Wheel's Fiddle Player Katie Shore is a rare acoustic performance here at the Devil's Backbone Tavern from one of the most beloved and iconic personalities and Front Men in Texas Music and Beyond! Get your tickets and Reserved Seats before it Sells out!
Doors 7pm | Show 8pm
RAY BENSON is a towering icon of Texas music, an ambassador and survivor. Over the course of 50 years, he and his band Asleep at the Wheel carved out a hard-earned, Grammy-winning niche as the embodiment of the adventurous spirit of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.
Asleep at the Wheel did it by riding the country-rock and outlaw country wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s but with revivalists’ love of pure Western swing, country, rock ’n’ roll, jazz, boogie-woogie, and Texas blues. Benson’s bigger-than-life persona, sense of flair, and fun was the cherry on top.
In college, Ray attended a Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen concert and was blown away by the band’s fusion of old-school country, Western swing, and psychedelic rock. Along with a handful of friends and fellow musicians, Benson formed Asleep at the Wheel and, after months of rehearsals in Paw Paw, the group began playing gigs around the country. In 1973, they landed in Austin, Texas, having been booked for a show at the Armadillo World Headquarters.
We played at the Armadillo and it was like: This is it. It’s heaven; we’ve found heaven on earth. There’s people our age who love our music. They have beer. There were college girls to chase. Rent was a hundred dollars a month. And pot was cheap.
At Willie Nelson’s urging, Benson and his bandmates settled in the city, eventually becoming an Austin institution and a nationally acclaimed group, with more than 25 studio and live albums, nine GRAMMY Awards, and the 2009 Americana Music Award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance. Though the band’s lineup has changed many times throughout the years (more than 80 musicians are alumni), Ray is a constant, thanks to his ongoing love of Western swing – or what he calls “jazz with a cowboy hat.”
Like many fiddlers, Katie was inspired at a young age by her Grandfather. At six years old she told her parents she wanted to "play music you can clap your hands and stomp your feet to". Hailing from Ft. Worth "Cowtown", Tx, Katie grew up playing in a world of strong fiddle traditions.
Katie Shore leads her own project and has performed and collaborated with musicians including The Jitterbug Vipers, Continental Graffiti, Ghosts Along the Brazos, Willie Nelson and George Strait. Inspired by many styles and cultures, Katie's voice and fiddle have taken her around the country and abroad. Currently the female vocalist and fiddle player for 9-time Grammy Award winning band, Asleep at the Wheel!
