Publish a book about somebody, and you’ll hear from plenty of folks with anecdotes you didn’t hear in time — but also pictures. Here we have a photo taken by a News & Observer co-worker of mine, Chris Seward, a very fine photographer who has been shooting band photos around these parts for decades. This one captures Asleep at the Wheel onstage at The Pier, a fabled Raleigh nightspot that was part of the Cameron Village Underground (a district that still has enough of a cult-like following three-plus decades after it closed to draw a sellout crowd when the space was reopened to the public for one night earlier this year).
As for this picture, Ray Benson puts the year at about 1981 or ’82, which sounds right since The Pier closed in 1983. Along with Ray front and center with his guitar, it shows fiddler Paul Anastasio, Brenda Burns and MaryAnn Price on tambourine.
Asleep at the Wheel at the Pier in Raleigh, NC, circa 1981. Photo by Chris Seward
Losering Books 