Coming through Iowa City on Wednesday, November 4th is Willis Alan Ramsey. As a kickoff show to Iowa City Songwriter’s Festival, this acclaimed artist will be making the trek from Colorado with his guitar to The James Theater with Sam Knutson. I chatted with Ramsey before the show, hitting on his start with music, how recording has changed over time, and his upcoming third record.
Logan Melia: Willis, it’s a pleasure to have you in Iowa City coming up in a week or so. Is this your first time coming to town it is or are you a a well-traveled man in the Midwest?
Willis Alan Ramsey: I love the Midwest you know I’m not as well traveled in the Midwest as I am in other parts of the country but I have played Chicago and Wisconsin a lot when I was younger and you know I like Midwesterners and I like the energy there
LM: Do you remember when you first started playing guitar yourself?
WAR: Let’s see I took up guitar after being a a drummer when I was a little kiddo and after moving from there to bass and then electric guitar and in a band and then acoustic guitar. So probably about, oh I guess eighth grade.
LM: So a good long chunk of time right here. You listed a lot of instruments there, is the guitar your favorite to play or are you partial to something else?
WAR: Yeah, it is. I’m much more accomplished on acoustic guitar. I’m playing bass and drums and I play a little piano too.
LM: That’s lovely. Do you remember the first song you learned on guitar?
WAR: Yeah, I do. It was on electric guitar. I worked out the lead to “Louie Louie”.
LM: That’s a good song right there. How long did that take you to learn?
WAR: It probably took me about a good afternoon into the evening to figure out where to put my fingers. I had it down after that.
LM: Was guitar something that just came easily to you, like second nature, or did you really have to kind of earn those calluses?
WAR: Well, since I started off on electric guitar, it was a little easier. in terms of being able to fret and having, you know, played the bass before that it wasn’t that hard actually.
LM: I read that back in high school, you did some musicals back in the day, is that true?
WAR: Yeah, yeah, I was, I was in my junior year, Camelot. It was one of the nights, three nights. And then I was the lead in Carousel, not my favorite musical my senior year. It was Billy Bigelow, which is kind of not necessarily a fit, but I guess I pulled it off.
LM: What is your favorite musical?
WAR: Well, It’s a good question. I like West Side Story, I guess.
LM: When you were learning this kind of more ‘musical’ music, do you feel as though that influenced your own creation of music? More of the Broadway appeal of it all?
WAR: Not as much, actually. My primary influence growing up was my brother, I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama and lived there until I was 10. And my middle brother, he and my oldest brother were across the hall from me, the middle brother played a lot of the John R. Show, which was a clear channel on and blues music channel out of Nashville. They used to call it race music back in most days. They had people like Rey Charles, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Lee, Ted Berry, you know, all the greats. And it just totally captivated me. I love that. And then later on, towards high school, and then when I was starting to get out on my own playing, I listened to a lot of roots music. the Mississippi Delta blues players, Texas blues players, and the original Nashville roots music, which was started out in Bristol, Virginia, Tennessee, the Carter family, Jim Rogers, people like that. So I tended to gravitate away from more sophisticated music, although I love the Beatles productions and all the English invasion bands.
LM: And the Beatles did so much in such a short period of time, you know? Was it 8 years?
WAR: Yeah, it was unbelievable. It’s hard to believe that all that happened in eight years.
LM: Yeah. Do you have a favorite Beatles record?
WAR: Oh man, I like them all. for one reason or another, but it’s just hard to believe that they made some of those latter productions mainly on four-track tape recorders. Some synced two four-track recorders together. But it’s really incredible what they did with, and as a matter of fact, That’s what got me hooked on music was just how great it sounded from the everything from the late 40s, 50s, and 60s, which it doesn’t sound that way today. I have real issues with how music has been degraded via technology, quote unquote, advances. which really just suck. I hate digital.
LM: Does it just take the life out of it for you?
WAR: Yeah, well, it takes the life out of it in reality, period. It’s not just me. I mean, it’s anybody that has ears that can hear, can turn on Sirius Radio and listen to, you know, the Beatles channels or Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure show where he plays a lot of that 50s and 60s music. So I made it on two transformer couples, equipment electronics with, you know, an analog deck, same thing. Tubes and transformers really kind of get it from me. But they just sound far superior than the crap I listen to now.
LM: Is there anyone doing it the right way in this modern age right now?
WAR: Not so much because a lot of that equipment, has aged and kind of gone away, ended up in landfills. Back in the mid to late 60s, studio owners were sold a bill of goods about recording consoles and tape recorders and spec sheets and everything. And they weren’t able to compare electric guitar players who could plug back and forth between the new solid state amplifiers and the old tube transformer a couple of guitar amplifiers like Fender made. And I’m going, no, I think I’m going to stick with my tube transformer coupled Fender amp. You can’t do that with a recording console. You can’t put two recording consoles next to each other because it’s too hard to interface. Same thing with two recorders. Anyway, but yeah, I’m working on a project with some folks that hopefully will bring back some of the best elements. I think the baby really got thrown out with the bathwater. You know, if you had everybody from Sinatra to The Beach Boys and The Beatles, especially those old blues guys as well, and you recorded them on today’s digital software workstations, et cetera. They wouldn’t sound like the great artists they sound like on this old recording for me. It’s, you know, I don’t want to get too far off on this topic, but it’s something that I noticed coming up. I got signed on the cusp of a period in 1971 when all of that transformer couple stuff was being converted to discrete solid state, which still sounds pretty good. But you could hear the difference. And I used to wonder when I was in the studio why it didn’t sound like some of the stuff that I loved so much in the 50s and 60s. And now I know chapter and verse.
LM: There you go. That was really insightful. I appreciate you sharing that with me.
WAR: Yeah, well, it’s just, I don’t want to get on a rant about it, which I can easily do. It has a lot to do with my challenges in terms of getting something that I’m happy with in the studio.
LM: You mentioned your new project or what you’ve been working on. Is that the elusive Gentilly?
WAR: No, we sort of put Gentilly to bed just because We were funding it independently via some investors in Texas who, let’s just say they didn’t follow through on their commitment. So that was the second record, and I’m sort of fond of saying I’ve sort of let the second record go, and I’m proceeding on with the third record.
LM: That’s a good mentality.
WAR: Yeah, so anyway, that’s got to run out on that.
LM: What are you of building off of with this third record? What should listeners expect in the future?
WAR: Well hopefully they’ll be blown away with it, they’ll be impressed by the right way is no longer being recorded and also the session musicians we’re going to use, the players, and the arrangements. My goal is to really make it worthwhile to have having taken so long in making something for a second or third record.
LM: Absolutely. Now what can attendees expect next week in Iowa City from your performance. What do you think is going to be on the set? Anything from that new record?
WAR: Yes. It’s sort of half and half. A lot of people like to hear the old songs of that Green Album. And so it’s just me, acoustic guitar and vocal, and maybe a footboard. But I’m sort of eclectic in terms of my a lot of different musical styles. So it’s pretty varied. A lot of my stuff is blues influence and a lot of it’s folk and some of it’s sort of more original country. So a little bit of everything except for jazz.
LM: I’m really looking forward to that. I’m excited for a big show. Anything else you want to say to the people of Iowa City before next week rolls around?
WAR: No, just I hope they can come out. I’m really honored to be playing the preview show for the festival for the weekend following. I know some of the artists that are going to be playing that weekend. It’ll be fun to be on the bill.
You can find tickets to Willis Alan Ramsey at The James Theater on November 4th here.
You can find more info and passes to Iowa City Songwriter’s Festival November 4th-7th here.
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