Hoping to Go Five-for-Six

Nobody remotely familiar with the veteran western swing band Asleep at the Wheel was surprised last summer when the group released “Ride With Bob,” an all-star tribute to the king of western swing, Bob Wills.

But even big Wheel Ray Benson didn’t expect what happened last month when Grammy nominations were announced: “Ride With Bob” came away with six, more than any other country group or album.

“I was really hoping to get maybe three, when they all started pouring in,” Benson, 49, says. “I told somebody, ‘We have more nominations than the Republican presidential primary.’

“The validation,” he adds, “is that the people who vote on these are doing what I do every day: making music, recording music, composing music, arranging music--it’s not necessarily the people who buy or sell music. . . . I understand that there’s plenty of popularity contests going on in the big categories, but in the smaller categories, there’s great integrity.”

The Band Competing Against Itself

Though “Ride With Bob” is up for six Grammys, the group, which plays Saturday at the Arcadia nightclub in Santa Monica, can’t come away with more than five from Wednesday’s ceremony at Staples Center. The band is competing against itself in the collaboration with vocals category.

“Ride With Bob” isn’t the first time Asleep at the Wheel has saluted its mentor. The 1993 album “Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys” was the first installment of what Benson hoped would become an ongoing Wills tribute. That one--with help from guests including Garth Brooks, Vince Gill, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett and Willie Nelson--won three Grammys.

It’s been suggested--and Benson won’t argue the point--that every Asleep at the Wheel album is a tribute to Wills, the innovator who combined ‘30s big-band music with straight country, cowboy music, jazz and blues.

“Wills set the tone for honky-tonk music of the ‘40s--Ernest Tubb and people like that,” the Austin-based Benson says. “And you have to consider it one of the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, because he had the beat and he interpreted black music through a white man’s experience. The blues was always an integral part of his music.”

Wills’ legacy extends well beyond the music itself, and beyond the musicians he directly influenced, most notably Asleep, Merle Haggard and George Strait.

Says Benson: “When Wills first went to Grand Ole Opry in 1940--Minnie Pearl told me this before she died--it had an image of straw hats, hayseeds, overalls, wader boots and real rural music. Bob Wills & the Playboys showed up in tailored western suits, cowboy hats and they had drums, electric guitars and saxophones. They turned Nashville on its ear. After they left, every hillbilly went out and got a cowboy suit, a hat and an electric guitar.”

Wills’ music had the same effect on Benson, a Jewish kid from Pennsylvania.

“I was 17 years old when I first heard Bob Wills. I was a long-haired hippie and it got me,” he says. “I imagine that other kids 17 years old, whatever generation they would be, might hear it and like it. There is an appeal to this music that seems to have great staying power.”

That power, however, turned Benson into an anomaly when he moved to Paw Paw, W. Va., in the late ‘60s and decided to start a hippie swing band.

Yet with some supportive words from Van Morrison that helped land Asleep its first record contract, the group evolved into a mainstay of modern country music. Asleep at the Wheel is widely respected in the industry, but with the exception of all-star projects such as “Ride With Bob,” it’s also rarely in the limelight.

Benson would still like to hear the record played on radio more than it is--”What we do is different, but it’s good,” he argues--but concedes he’s already gotten his big reward out of the project.

“We’re not Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera,” he says. “This is not mainstream stuff. We do it because we love it and want to support it and keep it in the public ear. It really is a heartfelt tribute album. If I were to sit down and do something just to please myself, it would be this album.”

BE THERE

Asleep at the Wheel, Saturday, Arcadia, 250 Santa Monica Pier. With Naked Truckers. 8 p.m. $31. (310) 260-4807.