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Life & Arts

Ramsey's debut still a must-have addition to Texas canon

Texas native;s songs have been covered by Lovett, Clapton

by BEN HILL
The Daily Cougar

Editor's note: On The Record is an article that gives writers a chance to explain why a past album is still relevant in today's music culture. It also gives writers the opportunity to explain why the work is significant to them.

It doesn't take much imagination to see the story unfold. An old thief, tired and hungry, staggers into a fire-lit camp of vagabond rail riders. He's grateful for their hospitality and begins to tell them a tale of melodramatic robbery and love found and quickly lost, all glazed with nostalgia and tinged with sadness. He's a man, broken by hard living and failure, who asks that if anyone should happen across his long lost lady, to tell her, "Ol' spider got tangled in the black web that he spun."

It's called "The Ballad Of Spider John," and it first appeared on an obscure album by an equally obscure songwriter from Texas named Willis Alan Ramsey. He was young at the time, about 19 or 20 years old, when his eponymous debut was released in 1972. It remains his only effort to date, but has become a vitally important block in the foundation of a progressive, anti-Nashville brand of country that would eventually be known as Texas music.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to say Ramsey's influence rivals that of Townes Van Zandt and Willie Nelson in the Texas music. Shawn Colvin, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Jerry Jeff Walker, America Jimmy Buffett, Waylon Jennings and Sam Bush have covered his songs, but his influence is heard most in the oddball humor and evasiveness that pervades Lyle Lovett's music. 

Ramsey wasn't just a brilliant songwriter; he was also quite a capable musician, playing many of the instruments on the album. Of course, he had a little help along the way, notably from Leon Russell, who along with Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman, more or less discovered Ramsey, though Ramsey had taken the initiative by knocking on their hotel room doors, asking if he could play for them a song or two. Russell signed Ramsey to his Shelter Records label and essentially turned him loose in the studio to figure recording out on his own.

After opening with "The Ballad Of Spider John," Ramsey fades in with the opening chords and instantly recognizable bass line of "Muskrat Candlelight," which America and Captain and Tenille would later cover as "Muskrat Love." 

He creates a seductive atmosphere with a single guitar and bass as Russell improvises in the background on vibes. The effect is lovely: imagine Boz Scaggs having an after-hours jam with Van Morrison's band from the Moondance album.

Sounds of artists yet to achieve fame can be heard throughout the album. "Painted Lady" is a country-rock masterpiece with inflections of bluegrass. It was released as California bands like The Eagles and, to a lesser extent, Poco were only beginning to pick up where The Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds had left off. With a few exceptions, country rock hadn't really happened yet. The hesitant, funky shuffle that became Little Feats' "Dixie Chicken" and is all over "Northeast Texas Woman" and "Satin Sheets" precludes some of Lyle Lovett's stranger moments by at least a decade. The latter features the lyric "Hallelujah, what's it to ya? / Praise the Lord and pass the mescaline." This off-kilter humor is one of Ramsey's trademarks, but his best cuts are slower numbers like the slide guitar-soaked blues "Watermelon Man," "Boy from Oklahoma," Ramsey's homage to Woody Guthrie, and "Goodbye To Old Missoula."

Ramsey remains an enigmatic figure to this day, though he does occasionally give interviews and appeared on an Austin City Limits segment in 2001 with nine new songs. Eric Clapton recorded his "Positively" in 2003 for Jamie Oldaker's Mad Dogs & Okies compilation. If his work with Lovett is any indication, his writing abilities have only improved with age and if another album does materialize, it will prove to be as essential as the first.

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