Watch Walmart Yodeller Mason Ramsey Perform Hank Williams’ Legendary ‘Lovesick Blues’
Mason Ramsey, an 11-year-old singer and yodeller from Golconda, Illinois, has breathed renewed life into country icon Hank Williams’ ‘Lovesick Blues’, which currently sits at No 3 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart for the US and at No 4 internationally.
Mason Ramsey, an 11-year-old singer and yodeller from Golconda, Illinois, has breathed renewed life into country icon Hank Williams’ ‘Lovesick Blues’, which currently sits at No 3 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart for the US and at No 4 internationally.
In the video, Mason Ramsey, clad in jeans, white shirt and red bow tie, belts out a pitch-perfect rendition of the heart-breaking country song in the middle of Walmart. The video, posted late last month, has amassed nearly 10 million views and countless parodies. The young star’s Internet fame also earned the self-professed “country boy” a guest spot on the Ellen DeGeneres Show this week.
Penned by Tin Pan Alley songwriters Cliff Friend and Irving Mills, Hank Williams’ version of ‘Lovesick Blues’ was actually released 27 years after the tune first debuted in the 1922 musical Oh, Ernest, sung by mezzo-soprano singer and actress Anna Chandler and titled ‘I’ve Got the Love-Sick Blues.’ The first commercial recording of it, also from 1922, was by vaudeville performer Elsie Clark. In 1925, future Country Music Hall of Fame member, record producer and talent scout Ralph Peer cut four songs by falsetto-singing minstrel performer Emmett Miller for Okeh Records. Miller’s sweet, yodelling style would prove a profound influence on future country legends including Williams, Merle Haggard and George Strait, who had a Top 30 hit with ‘Lovesick Blues’ in 1992.
Williams’ ‘Lovesick Blues,’ was believed to have been influenced heavily by early country singer-songwriter Rex Griffin, whose ‘Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,’ would also influence Williams and, later, Carl Perkins and The Beatles. ‘Lovesick Blues,’ which he recorded in two takes, proved to be a huge breakthrough for Williams, who left audiences enthralled with his yodel-heavy version, first at the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, then at the Grand Ole Opry, where on 11 June, 1949, the night of his debut, it was among the songs that legend says earned the Alabama native an astounding six encores.
Williams’ first Number One – and the best-selling record of 1949 – it topped the Billboard chart for a remarkable 16 weeks. Others who would cut it over the ensuing decades included Red Kirk, Sonny James, Sonny Curtis, Hank impersonator Jim Owen all of whom had Billboard entries with it, though none nearly as successful as the Williams record.
Curtis also cut ‘Lovesick Blues’ in 1971 with The Crickets, by which time it had already been covered by Patsy Cline, Jerry Lee Lewis, Floyd Cramer and British musician Frank Ifield. (Others who recorded the song include Merle Haggard, Glen Campbell, Don McLean, the trio of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, LeAnn Rimes, Ryan Adams and English jazz musician Jamie Cullum.)
In the wake of the clip of Mason Ramsey clip going viral, Kacey Musgraves posted a short, archival video of herself on social media, dressed in pink cowgirl attire and showcasing her considerable yodelling skills on ‘I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,’ another country classic and one she often performed pre-stardom on the Texas Opry circuit.
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