Asleep at the Wheel has been the standard-bearer for Western swing music for more than 40 years now. But in recent years, they’ve also become a bit of a multi-media entity.

For starters, in 2005, they debuted a musical-theater production, “A Ride With Bob,” about the life of Bob Wills, the Western swing pioneer who is the number one musical hero of the Wheel’s leader / singer Ray Benson. And it was Wills’ seminal group, the Texas Playboys, who, starting in the 1930s, established the Western swing template that the Wheel still follows today.

Several band members appear in the production, which stars Benson and also features the group’s female singer, Elizabeth McQueen (and her luminous vocals ) in several roles. The group continues to perform the critically-lauded production about 20 times a year, in addition to touring and recording.

And now, they’re also working on a documentary film on the band that reaches back to their 1970s beginnings and traces the group up to the present time. Which means that, for now, they're taking a break from recording—but not touring: They come to The Ark on Wednesday.

“Yeah, it’s going to be pretty comprehensive,” says Benson of the documentary. “It will include interviews with everyone from our past line-ups”—and that’s a lot of musicians: The Wheel’s lineup seems to have always been in flux over the decades. “We want to get it done by the end of the year, and then we’ll start thinking about a new record.

“And I’m not sure what kind of record that will be,” says Benson by phone from the band’s tour bus. “There are some tribute albums I’ve been been wanting to do, including a Louis Jordan tribute, I have to decide whether that would be a Wheel record or if I would do it as a solo album.”

The group’s last album, “It’s a Good Day,” released last July, was a collaboration with Leon Rausch, who was a singer for Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys in the mid-1950s.

Rausch was in the last great Playboys lineup, in the mid-1950s, “and appeared on their last great recordings,” during that period, notes Benson. Then, in the late ‘50s, Wills had some financial problems, and sold the rights to the Texas Playboys' name. Since then, various incarnations of the Playboys have carried on, and Rausch, 83, has been in the current edition for some time now.

Benson first met Rausch back in the ‘70s, “and we’ve been wanting to do a record with him for 30 years, and when he turned 80, we figured, ‘We better do this soon, because you never know…..’”

Benson says the group did the collaboration—which alternately showcases the vocal talents of Rausch, Benson and McQueen—“just for the pure pleasure of it - just something we wanted to do as a life experience.”

"It's a Good Day," like most efforts by the Wheel—or, for that matter, by Wills and the Playboys—is a Western swing affair that borrows liberally from other genres. The title track, for example, was a jazzy-pop, ‘40s-era Peggy Lee hit, and has been covered dozens of times. And “All Right, Okay, You Win” was a bluesy-jazz concoction recorded by Joe Williams with Count Basie in the ‘50s. And they also do the New Orleans vintage-jazz classic, “Basin Street Blues.”

And, as always, the group didn’t just do faithful reproductions of these vintage tunes—they reworked them according to their own sensibilities. “We borrowed some aspects of the arrangements, and in many cases, then added our own twist.”

For example, on the title track, they borrowed the ensemble approach of Lee’s version, and then of course added fiddle and lap-steel guitar—“but not pedal steel,” emphasizes Benson, “because that wasn’t invented until the 1950s”: The Playboys used a lap-steel on their seminal ‘30s and ‘40s-era recordings. The lap-steel solo indeed gives the song a more vintage Wills-like flavor.

They also re-recorded “Get Your Kicks (On Route 66),” which has more or less been the Wheel’s theme song for many years. Indeed, it was Rausch who suggested the Wheel add that to their repertoire, way back in ’74, and that they set it to a swinging, boogie-woogie groove. Nat King Cole’s ‘40s-era hit was a cool-jazz rendition. “But Leon suggested we do it eight-to-the-bar—that is, the piano plays eight beats to the bar—which suggests more forward movement. So we had to do that one on this record and have Leon sing it.”

The record has another guest star: Benson’s old friend Willie Nelson, who lends his unmistakable vocals to “Truck Driver’s Blues.”

When tackling “Basin Street Blues,” Benson decided, “OK, let’s just do this like we’re a New Orleans jazz band, except with different instruments.” So, for example, they replaced the trombone with the steel guitar, which is fitting, because both instruments employ a sliding sound.

On this disc, McQueen mostly shows off her seductive but sassy vocal talents on “Alright, Okay, You Win.” She generally does a duet or two with Benson on each album, and also adds shimmery harmony vocals to many of the band’s other songs.

She joined the band in 2006, giving them their first female vocalist in many years—much to the delight of longtime Wheel fans, who remember some of the classic and beloved tracks sung by Chris O’Connell back in the 1970s, before she left the band. So the group has added some of those songs back to their repertoire since McQueen joined.

“She has a lovely voice,” says Benson of McQueen, who is married to the band’s drummer, Dave Sanger. “We wanted to add another girl singer for a long time, but I couldn’t find one who I thought fit our music. It had to be someone who had a touch of country, a touch of swing—you know, a bit of Patsy Cline, as well as a bit of Ella Fitzgerald - a voice that had a timeless quality

“And then I heard her sing at a birthday party, and I thought, ‘Oh, man, this is the voice I’ve been looking for.’ And she’s been a perfect fit.”

Kevin Ransom, a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com, can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.