Robert Franklin “Bo” Ramsey is one of those musicians better known among his peers than among the public. Springing from the same corn-fed Iowa fields as his sometime songwriting partner Greg Brown, he plays a gritty heartland style of blues, folk and rock.
Ramsey’s bio is replete with brushes with fame and collaborations with big names. In addition to touring and recording with Brown, he toured with Lucinda Williams, Steve Young and R. B. Morris in 1994, and played slide guitar on a couple of tracks of Williams’ Grammy-winning 1998 CD, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. But he’s been playing and recording on his own since the 1970s, with eight solo recordings in his discography. In the Weeds, originally released in 1997, was his third for Trailer and his first since 1991.
Ramsey co-wrote two of the songs on Weeds with Brown, and wrote the rest himself. He sings with a versatile baritone that ranges from a bluesy growl to a folksy twang, and plays all kinds of acoustic, electric and slide guitars. He’s assisted by Kelly Joe Phelps on lap steel and vocals, Lucinda Williams on vocals, David Zollo on piano and a slew of other pros on organs, bass, percussion and whatnot.
The tracks alternate between slow, bluesy numbers and uptempo rockers. The title track, which starts the CD, is one of the latter, a hooky, riff-driven country rocker with literate, poetic lyrics. It’s followed by the acoustic folk-rock of “Desert Flower,” a tribute to a woman who’s both strong and delicate. Lucinda adds her lonely, twangy voice to the refrains, but I kept expecting the Everly Brothers to chime in — it’s that kind of rocking country ditty.
The swampy, loungey “Precious,” at a little over six minutes, alternates semi-spoken verses with a slide guitar that nearly sings itself, and its all laid over a mesmerizing rhythm. And “Forget You” is a fast rocking blues, all distorted guitars and wailing organ, with musical and lyrical hooks that would do Boyce and Hart proud.
They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. If nothing on In the Weeds matches the output of top-tier musicians like Brown, Williams and Phelps, it’s telling that they are nonetheless proud to contribute to this record.
(Trailer Records, 1997; reissued Rubric Records, 2001)
