Asleep at the Wheel

Show: With Jeanne Jolly on Wednesday at the Birchmere. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500. birchmere.com. $35.

When Asleep at the Wheel played at Rams Head on Stage in September, it was a kind of homecoming for the seven-piece Texas-swing band. The group got its start in Maryland in 1970 before moving on to Paw Paw, W.Va.; Berkeley, Calif.; and finally its longtime home in Austin. Even in those early days, the band was in the thrall of Bob Wills and his outstanding pre-World War II soloists such as Leon McAuliffe and Johnny Gimble.

In Annapolis, granddaughter Emily Gimble sat at the piano, singing lead on Wills's "Keeper of My Heart." She had sung the song as a duet with Merle Haggard on Asleep at the Wheel's latest album, "Still the King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys," released in March. Ray Benson, the group's leader and only remaining original member, served as her vocal foil this time.

Benson stands 6-foot-7, and his big, white cowboy hat with black edging made him look even taller at the Rams Head. His long ponytail and goatee showed signs of graying, but his exuberance for Wills’s syncopated country music was undiminished. Benson stomped the Annapolis stage with his black-and-white cowboy boots and belted out such favorites as “Route 66,” “Miles and Miles of Texas” and “San Antonio Rose.” But he always leaves plenty of room for Gimble, fiddler Katie Shore, steel guitarist Eddie Rivers and saxophonist Jay Reynolds to play the hot solos that transform these hillbilly songs into jazz.

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