Asleep At The Wheel wake up the Factory Theatre
Image: Asleep At The Wheel. Image: Lucky Press
The band, Asleep At The Wheel, are something of an American musical institution, being acknowledged by nine Grammy Awards across their 20 album career, and for one night only they will get to weave their magic at Marrickville’s Factory Theatre.
Asleep At The Wheel has a strong Australian connection in the person of Lucky Oceans, an original member and someone who is regarded as one of the world’s top pedal steel guitarist.
Asleep At The Wheel’s long association with Oceans is part of their origin story that starts back in 1969 at Paw Paw College, West Virginia, when he and long-term member and friend Ray Benson got together to form a band to support Alice Cooper and Hot Tuna (former Jefferson Airplane members).
At the behest of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen the band relocated to California and a record deal, before Willie Nelson invited them to move once again to Austin Texas where they recorded a string of highly acclaimed country flavoured albums and top ten singles.
A cover of Louis Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” and the Benson co-penned “The Letter That Johnny Walker Read” soon made their marks on the county charts and in 1997 the band was voted Best Country Western Band by Rolling Stone and Touring Band of the Year by the Academy of County Music.
Major influences on the band include Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Willie Nelson, Emmy Lou Harris and Count Basie.
Lucky Oceans (Reuben Gosfield) is known to many Australians for his Radio National program Daily Planet, which ran for 21 years.
After leaving Ray Benson and Asleep At The Wheel in 1980, Oceans married and relocated to Fremantle, Western Australia, where he quickly immersed himself in the local and national music scene, playing with Paul Kelly, Archie Roach, Kasey Chambers, Vicka and Linda Bull and The Shadows legend, Hank Marvin, who had also made Perth his home after moving from the UK.
Oceans has also spent time as an Australia Council Music Board member and given a TedX talk about how pure music is made in the moment.
In 2023 Oceans rejoined his old college mate Benson and the current Asleep At The Wheel members for a string of dates that takes in Australia and much of the world.
October 15, 7pm
Factory Theatre,105 Victoria Road, Marrickville
