Proof That I Have Lived in Texas Nearly a Year
When my sister-in-law drove me to the Salt Lake airport last April so I could fly to Texas for the first time, she mentioned that one of her and her husband’s favorite bands was from Austin. They’d seen them in concert several times when they’d performed in Utah; she joked the band would be the reason they’d come visit us in Texas. The band was “Asleep at the Wheel.”
Yesterday, when I was driving to the library during my lunch break, I turned on NPR and heard a great song – I had the chorus stuck in my head all day. When I returned from lunch, I did a quick Google search and, lo and behold, it was by that same band (did you guess that already? What with the mentioning of the band right before I talked about the song? You’re so bright!).
The song is “Am I Right or Amarillo.” Yikes! I just linked to a MySpace page. The horror! Still, you should check it out. And then erase your history so that no one ever has to know that you’ve ventured onto MySpace.
I like select country music, but I really love some good fiddlin’. As a former violin player, it’s practically a requirement. And this song, friends, has some fun fiddling. Also, a few harmonized notes that make me just want to dance (trust me, you do not want to see that).
I have a bad habit of listening to the same song over and over until I’m completely sick of it and right now, this song is getting that treatment; I have listened to it four times so far while writing this post. And I still like it. And I’ll probably like it for fifty more consecutive listenings.
Also, one cannot be charmed by a band whose tagline is “Western swing ain’t dead. It’s . . . ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL!” Ha! I’ll be repeating that dumb sentence to myself for weeks. Surprisingly, I’m okay with that.
(Asleep at the Wheel is performing on my birthday in Austin, but unfortunately, it’s at Austin City Limits which I am deeply hesitant to attend because no parking anywhere! six gazillion people! hours of outdoor heat! sweaty bodies packed together! But, they are performing a few other times in Austin this fall, and I have plans to make Bart take me. And maybe my sister-in-law will come too).
I’m a sucker for good fiddling.
I just went over to amazon.com and listened to a few samples of this. How did I miss this band? They’ve been around for something like 30 years! Love it!
We used to get a weekly show on a PBS station called Austin City Limits. As far as I know, they are still doing this show but I haven’t seen it on any of our something like 300 cable channels (what the heck are we paying for? 300+ channels and no Austin City Limits?). I was able to watch a live feed of the Austin City Limits Festival (I think that is what they call the several day outdoor music event) last year. I wouldn’t care to go to the live event though – too big and too many people for me!