Despite being a relative unknown, Willis Alan Ramsey was one of the finest singer-songwriters of the 1970s. But his face does not appear within your parents’ record collection alongside James Taylor and Jackson Browne because his 1972 self-titled record 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.
