O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Asleep at the Wheel Is Terrific, Even at Half Speed

While Asleep at the Wheel’s grizzled leader Ray Benson might not be the ideal model for Father Time, he filled the bill Saturday night, welcoming in Orange County’s newest music club, the Southampton in San Clemente.

Benson’s Western swing outfit has been routinely orbiting through O.C. since the early ‘70s, having played Huntington Beach’s now-legendary Golden Bear for more than a decade, until the club became redevelopers’ grist.

If Asleep at the Wheel similarly outlives the Southampton, it probably will be more due to the group’s durability (it has weathered more than 60 member changes and a 300-day-per-year tour schedule) than to any lack in the club. Though the 350-seat facility isn’t yet an ideal concert setting, there is much to recommend it.

The room was built as a dinner theater. It’s excellent sight lines and acoustics (the latter aided by a high, domed ceiling) lend themselves equally well to amplified concerts. The sole technical drawback Saturday was in the new sound system, which seemed to be serving only one side of the room, leaving the band’s vocals buried on the other side.

Still, while none of the seats were particularly far from the stage, the proximity didn’t quite equal intimacy. The low, five-sided stage is so large that it might leave all but the largest bands feeling stranded on it, and the blazing lights splashing down from all angles made it sometimes seem that the musicians were part of a showroom display.

That and the room’s somewhat stuffy appearance might have applied some restraint to the proceedings (the Asleepers didn’t oblige the Southampton crowd with an encore, as they do at most of their shows) but not enough to keep several of the more rambunctious audience members from creating an impromptu dance floor in front of the stage. One particularly enthusiastic fellow with a Marine haircut even began making an expletive-drenched speech from the stage before being shouted down by Benson’s suggestion that he purchase a Mr. Microphone.

Benson and Co. have been livelier at previous county shows, but even at half throttle the seven-piece band is a pure pleasure to hear. Though Western swing pioneer Bob Wills probably would have thought twice about lending his car keys to this bunch, they do a better job of capturing the spirit and nuance of his music than any other current band, except perhaps Merle Haggard’s.

Their 18-song set Saturday included Wills’ “San Antonio Rose” and “Roly Poly,” Louis Jordan’s jump-blues classics “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens” and “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie” and songs ranging from the jazz standard “Jumping at the Woodside” to the crazed rockabilly of “Hot Rod Lincoln.” And nearly without exception, the varied material was spiced with the unique Western-swing blend of dance-happy country and jazz styles originated by Wills and his Texas Playboys in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

The non-swing numbers, Benson’s solo country blues version of “Prodigal Son” and an appropriately ruminative rendition of Wille Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” were no less splendid. Benson’s hot jazz guitar runs throughout the show were matched by John Ealy’s steel guitar and Larry Franklin’s fiddle work, with the latter especially flying on “Texas Fiddle Man.”

Owned by Al and Barbara Hampton, the Southampton is the smaller sister of Santa Ana’s 500-seat Harlequin Dinner Theatre, which also is getting into the concert market. With its name changed to Hampton’s, that club will see its name-act debut Dec. 14 with a show from Buster Poindexter. Joseph Schenk, talent buyer for the venues, said the Hamptons hope to present 15 shows a month in each room, featuring rock, jazz and rhythm and blues.

Forthcoming shows at the Southampton include Moe Bandy on Dec. 11 and a New Year’s Eve show with Jan and Dean. Hampton’s will have the Vegas revue Legends in Concerts, exhuming Elvis and others, Dec. 18 through 30; a New Year’s show with Jack Jones, and Blood, Sweat and Tears on Jan. 5 and 6.