In many ways,
Willis Alan Ramsey
's debut album makes him sound like the archetypical Texas
singer/songwriter
; there's more than a little
Guy Clark
in his approach, a healthy dose of
Townes Van Zandt
, a dash of
Jimmie Dale Gilmore
, and one can hear the echoes of what
Steve Earle
and
Lyle Lovett
would draw from this music. But
Ramsey
's style -- an engaging mixture of cowboy poetry, post-hippie wit and wonder, and
introspection -- burst forth fully formed in 1972, while
Van Zandt
was still barely a rumor outside the Lone Star State, and
Clark
had yet to make himself heard on vinyl;
was at once a contemporary of the first wave of Texas songwriters, and one of the artists who blazed the trail for what would become one of the most fruitful tributaries of
American roots
music. While a number of artists covered material from
(
the Captain & Tennille
most famously with
"Muskrat Candlelight"
-- retitled
"Muskrat Love"
-- though
Waylon Jennings
,
Jerry Jeff Walker
, and even
Jimmy Buffett
fared better creatively), one listen to the album is enough to convince anyone
was as much a performer as a songwriter. The
bluesy
drawl and frayed edges of
's voice convey a road-worn maturity that betrayed his youth (he was in his early twenties when he cut these sessions), and his production (in collaboration with
Denny Cordell
) is remarkably intelligent and imaginative for someone with so little experience in the studio. From the tragic road story of
"The Ballad of Spider John,"
the weary nostalgia of
"Goodbye to Old Missoula,"
and the
Woody Guthrie
tribute of
"Boy from Oklahoma,"
to the horny twang of
"Geraldine and the Honeybee"
and the goofy music-biz meditation of
"Satin Sheets,"
hardly makes a false move or a poorly considered gesture through the course of the album's 40 minutes. Part of the mystique that has sprung up around
's debut album is that he dropped from sight after recording it (due to differences with his record company and a lack of enthusiasm for the realities of the music business), and has yet to release a follow-up, and it's hard to imagine anyone who has heard it not hoping there's more where this came from. If your recording career was to be contained in a single album, though, you'd be very fortunate if it were as good as
. ~ Mark Deming