Ask any discriminating musician or music lover to name favorite dobro and steel guitar players, and Cindy Cashdollar will be at or near the top of the list.

"I was very fortunate to grow up in a very musically cultural area," Cashdollar said of Woodstock, N.Y. "I got to play with people like Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield."

Cashdollar knows her way around big country twang as well as smokin' country swing, but she is also fond of the Hawaiian-style steel guitar.

"I grew up listening to a variety of music and ended up playing a variety of music," Cashdollar said by phone from her Austin, Texas, home.

Cashdollar's highest-profile days were with the Western swing group Asleep at the Wheel. That run ended in 2001, at her request.

"It was extremely difficult. I had been with them for 8½ years. But I just felt it was time. I was burned out musically. I was missing getting to do other things," she said. "When I told Ray Benson, his response was, 'I can't believe it took you this long.' Needless to say, I left on very good terms.

"Right after that, I started touring with BeauSoleil. And I've gotten to work with a lot of great people."

That list includes Rod Stewart, Van Morrison, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, who invited Cashdollar to be part of his album "Time Out of Mind," a 1997 Grammy winner. -- Bill Craig