Wills Power Gives Thrust to Asleep at the Wheel : Music: Band, which plays Crazy Horse tonight, is taking the lead of the late Western swing legend. New album, joined by some super stars, pays tribute to him.

Ray Benson met the legendary Bob Wills just once, in 1973 during Wills’ final recording session. They exchanged a brief hello before Wills went on to his hotel, where he suffered a stroke that left him in a coma until his death two years later.

“Spooky,” says Benson.

Twenty years later, Benson’s group Asleep at the Wheel has geared up to revive the spirit of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, whose Western swing music was the hottest thing in the Southwest throughout the ‘40s. With such hits as “New San Antonio Rose” and “New Spanish Two Step,” Wills sold mountains of records and even became a movie star as he put the “Western” into country and Western.

His infectious invention, which combined country fiddle music with big-band jazz and blues, is one of the pillars of country music, and Asleep’s new album on Liberty Records, “Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys,” finds Benson’s own veteran band joined by some of Wills’ surviving sidemen and a few younger guests (Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, Willie Nelson, Suzy Bogguss and more), all with interpretations of the master’s songs. But even with that power-packed roster, don’t expect it to spark a Wills resurgence with today’s new country audience.

“I think it’ll draw some people into listening to it, but I know radio better than that,” says Benson, whose colorful career with Asleep has been marked by frustrations and sidetracks as well as a few country hits and a solid cult following. The eclectic group comes to Santa Ana tonight for two shows at the Crazy Horse.

“Country radio doesn’t like Western swing,” Benson continued, his contempt for the institution obvious as he spoke by phone from his headquarters in Austin. “You don’t hear any of it in mainstream country. Zero.

“It’s a little frustrating but there’s nothing I can do about it. . . . This album is for an audience that wants to hear it. The nice thing is that I think there’s a large group of people who want to hear it.”

Wills was a major inspiration when Asleep was formed in 1970 and the tribute album is a dream that Benson, 42, has harbored for much of the past two decades. When the opportunity finally presented itself, he had no problem becoming organizer and administrator of this star-studded project.

“It should have been (difficult) but it wasn’t, ‘cause everybody was so cooperative. I know all these people on a personal level and I just would call them up and they said sure. By the time it was done, it was too late for the lawyers and managers to get involved.”

Even so, he did come up against the inevitable record-company politics.

“Oh God, yeah. Sony records wouldn’t let Mary-Chapin Carpenter do the record. . . . Just said no, absolutely not. . . . Because they had just given her too much money to let her go do this on somebody else’s label. It was awful. It was everything bad about the music business in one phone call.”

Others, including Reba McEntire, were unavailable because of scheduling conflicts. But Benson did get the two performers he felt were mandatory.

“George Strait and Merle Haggard are the two guys that I felt, if I didn’t have them on it, I really hadn’t succeeded. I really felt that they were the two who had kept the flame alive in country music.

“They’re about the only ones (playing Western swing) today, George’s band and Haggard--Merle when he’s in the mood. When he’s in the mood, he can flat do it better than anybody.”

Anybody except Wills, he might add. Though Benson never saw the fiddle player and his ensemble in its prime, he’s heard the stories and the records and has seen the films, and he has no doubts.

“To me, Western swing would just be another little footnote without Bob Wills, like bluegrass would have been another footnote without Bill Monroe. The charisma of Bob Wills and the personality of Bob Wills is what made it so incredible.

“His eyes were dark black, he was unpredictable, and he was different. But more than anything he was charismatic. When he got on stage people went, ‘Oh my God, this guy is something else.’ ”

* Asleep at the Wheel plays tonight at 7 and 10 at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. $24.50. (714) 549-1512.