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FRESHLY PRESSED
WILLIS ALAN RAMSEY
COUNTRY ROCK • 1972 (2026 REISSUE) • ANTARCTICA STARTS HERE
Today, a massively important, if largely unknown, re-issue.
Willis Alan Ramsey was 20 years old when he became the third signing to Leon Russell and Denny Cordell’s Shelter Records, after Russell himself and J.J. Cale. His 1972 debut is a masterpiece of laid-back Texas country-rock, blues-inflected folk and outlaw ballads, and it is also, famously, the only album he has ever made. Asked about a follow-up, his on-going answer is, “What’s wrong with the first one?”
It was cut across Memphis and Los Angeles studios, including Leon Russell’s Hollywood Hills home studio, with Russell, Eddie Hinton, Red Rhodes, Leland Sklar, Jim Keltner and Carl Radle among the players.
For a couple of generations of Texans raised on Ray Wylie Hubbard, Nanci Griffith, Willie Nelson, Gary Clark Jr. and Townes Van Zandt, ‘The Green Album’ is a touchstone, almost a secret handshake, and Texas Monthly has called it, “the first great Austin record.”
You know the songs even if you’ve never heard of Ramsey. ‘Muskrat Candlelight’ became ‘Muskrat Love’ for America in 1973, then a hit again for Captain & Tennille in 1976. Jimmy Buffett covered ‘The Ballad of Spider John,’ and ‘Satin Sheets’ has been recorded by, among others, Waylon Jennings, The Bellamy Brothers and Shawn Colvin.
This Antarctica Starts Here reissue (Superior Viaduct’s sub-label for ’60s and ’70s reissues) reproduces the original lyric sheet and adds a new interview with Ramsey and liner notes by Richie Unterberger. We have a first pressing, and we spin it on the regular, but we’re keeping our eyes open for this as well.
LISTEN & BUY
If at all possible, buy it at your local record store.