Willis Alan Ramsey (born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 5 March 1951) is an American singer-songwriter, a cult legend among fans of Americana and Texas country. His 1972 self-titled record Willis Alan Ramsey was the only album he ever recorded. Raised in Dallas, Texas, Ramsey graduated from Highland Park High School in 1969, and was a prominent baritone in the school's Lads and Lassies Choir. In his senior year, he played a leading role in the musical Carousel. He released the critically acclaimed...
Willis Alan Ramsey (born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 5 March 1951) is an American singer-songwriter, a cult legend among fans of Americana and Texas country. His 1972 self-titled record Willis Alan Ramsey was the only album he ever recorded.
Raised in Dallas, Texas, Ramsey graduated from Highland Park High School in 1969, and was a prominent baritone in the school's Lads and Lassies Choir. In his senior year, he played a leading role in the musical Carousel. He released the critically acclaimed album, Willis Alan Ramsey, in 1972 on the Shelter label. The album included "Muskrat Candlelight" which was covered (under the title "Muskrat Love") by America in 1973 and by Captain & Tennille in 1976.[
His 1972 self-titled record Willis Alan Ramsey was the only album he ever recorded. Ramsey didn’t overdose on pills or die in a plane crash; he chose to walk away from the music industry on his own undisclosed terms and hasn't been back in the recording studio for decades. According to an article that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on September 16, 2009, Ramsey is prepping his second LP, titled Gentilly, for release sometime in early 2010.
Willis Alan Ramsey opens with a teary-eyed confessional (“The Ballad of Spider John”) about a drifter who reflects on all his past misdeeds. This sets the tone for most of what follows. Although there are a couple of upbeat tunes, Ramsey's self-titled debut is mostly a melancholy and introspective affair. The subdued subject matter suits Ramsey’s honeyed voice, however, which coats the music in a quiet warmth that provides a nice, relaxing listen. It's an interesting bridge between the country world and the aforementioned singer-songwriters, fitting in nicely with the other 1970s albums of its ilk, such as Joni Mitchell's Blue and Cat Steven's Teaser and the Firecat. Like those seminal works, you can hear the artist yearning for the lost romanticism that ruled the decade before; he's accepted the demise of the hippie dream, fearful for the future, and sadly reflective for the present.
His ode to Woody Guthrie (“Boy from Oklahoma”) manages to be endearing without being overcome by maudlin sentiment, and the not-quite-country, not-quite-rock vibe of “Northeast Texas Women” is like a burst of sunshine. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
