Asleep at the Wheel, Ryan Chrys & The Rough Cuts

Asleep at the Wheel landed a gig opening for Alice Cooper and Hot Tuna in Washington, DC in 1970. At the height of Vietnam, many Americans were using their choice of music to express their stance on the conflict in southeast Asia. "We wanted to break that mold," said founder Ray Benson. "We were concerned more with this amazing roots music, which we felt was being lost amid the politics. We were too country for the rock folks and we were too long-haired for the country folks. But everybody got over it once the music started playing."
A year later, they were coaxed into moving to California by Commander Cody, leader of Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen. But, the band’s big break came when Van Morrison mentioned them in an interview with Rolling Stone: "there's some relatively unknown group around that I really dig. Asleep at the Wheel, they play great country music." The record offers started coming in and The Wheel got rolling.
The musicianship of Asleep at the Wheel has since become the stuff of legends. Reuter’s pegged The Wheel as "one of the best live acts in the business."