Leigh Brennen Featuring Asleep At The Wheel - Obsessed With The West

Brennen Leigh and Asleep At The Wheel together on new album

Brennen Leigh has always been one of the preeminent old souls of the country world, even when she was 19 and first moved to Austin, Texas from the upper Midwest to chase a career in country music.

Delightfully old-fashioned and born 60 years too late, she's always worked western swing influences into her music, and been chummy with the Asleep at the Wheel crowd in Austin. But now as a Nashville resident, the distance has made her heart grow fonder for that distinctly Texas style of country, and she's going all in with her new album.

"When I moved to Nashville from Texas, for some reason it triggered another western swing phase in my life," says Leigh. "I was out of Texas, but something about the swing was still grabbing me; I was listening to a lot of Bob Wills, and of course 'The Wheel. I had first been exposed to western swing through my parents' Asleep At The Wheel records while I was growing up."

Now on Obsessed With The West, her new album, she's returned with 12 all-original songs. Her supple winking voice and multi-instrument fluency, her interplay with Ray Benson, and the undeniable chops of the Wheel serve up a treat on her seventh album. The album's a showcase not just for the Bob Wills fans, but for anyone who's ever curled up with Loretta Lynn, Hank Sr., Cindy Walker, Billie Holiday, or Willie Nelson.

Leigh — a two-time winner of the Texas Music Awards Best Female Vocalist award — demonstrates on the terrific jump 40's rhythm and blues, "Comin' in Hot" and the lonesome cowboy musing of "Riding Off Onto Sunset Boulevard" why Rodney Crowell and Lee Ann Womack have recorded her songs.

Obsessed With The West is a celebration of music for music's sake in 2022, not just an exercise in looking back on times gone by.

Side A

1. If Tommy Duncan’s Voice Was Booze

2. In Texas With A Band - feat. Ray Benson

3. If I Treated You Like You Treat Me - feat. Emily Gimble

4. Same Dream

5. Tell Him I’m Dead - feat. Katie Shore

6. Obsessed With The West

Side B

1. Comin’ In Hot

2. I Was Just Thinking Of You

3. I Don’t Want Someone Who Don’t Want Me

4. Riding Off Onto Sunset Boulevard

5. You’re Doing It Wrong

6. Cottonwood Fuzz

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