The album was recorded in Jamaica
In the fifty-plus years that Ray Benson has fronted the nine-time Grammy Award-winning, Western Swing road warriors, Asleep At The Wheel, he has never shied away from a musical challenge. So, when invited by producer Doctor Dread of RAS Records fame to come to Kingston, Jamaica, to record an album of his music with some of the island’s top studio musicians, Benson was all in. On August 30th, the fruits of Benson and Doctor Dread’s labor, a new LP dubbed Swingin’ and Skankin’, will hit record store shelves and internet airwaves from Austin to Kingston, and beyond. Featuring ten songs culled from Texas and Jamaica’s musical canon, the collaboration between Benson and Doctor Dread took off as the two greats of their respective genres began to understand when to respect the others’ expertise.
“I was looking to go to a musical place where no man had ever gone before. Just like in Star Trek,” remembers Doctor Dread, the architect of the entire project. “Music is freedom so why not give it a try?” Benson enthusiastically put it before the start of the session, “Let’s see what the Jamaicans do with our music.” And when “the players of instruments” include the likes of consummate veterans Sly Dunbar on drums, Bob Dylan bassist and former Asleep At The Wheel member Tony Garnier, keyboardist/arranger Robbie Lyn and guitarists Dwight Pinkney and Steve Golding, rest assured the music was in expert hands.
Benson has released a single from the project, “Put It On.” Originally recorded in 1965 by the Wailing Wailers—later to become Bob Marley & The Wailers—“Put It On” has seen many versions over the last 60 years.
“A very challenging tune to take on, and I feel very good about our take on it,” says Benson. “It’s the closest thing to a “prayer’ that I’ve ever done in a song.”
Benson’s take on “Put It On” falls somewhere in between the original ska version and the signature sound of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ cut on 1973’s Burnin’, albeit with the addition of pedal steel melodies and a delay-ridden dub outro.
- Easy Snappin’/Easy Skankin’
- On The Road Again
- Route 66
- Boogie Back To Texas
- Boogie In My Bones
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Got Riddim
- Bubbles In My Beer
- Put It On
- Happy Trails
