Willis Alan Ramsey at Counterspace Bakery! with Drew Landry!

An Evening with Willis Alan Ramsey! and Drew Landry!

Drew Landry has joined the show!

Counterspace Bakery

5621 Government St in Baton Rouge

Overflow parking available at Brew-Bacher's, 5580 Government

Friday June 5

Tickets $40

Doors 6:30pm, Music 7:30

The bakery sales counter is not scheduled to be open for this event, but Cypress Coast Brewing next door will be open and hosting K-BBQ Boy (Korean BBQ) Food Truck!

Over 50 years after the release of his wildly influential self-titled album on Leon Russell's Shelter Records, Willis Alan Ramsey returns to touring.

Ramsey's debut in 1972 earned scores of accolades from artists ranging from The Allman Brothers to Lyle Lovett. The album was mined by many artists for their own recordings including Jimmy Buffett's "The Ballad of Spider John", Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "Goodbye Old
Missoula",. Shawn Colvin's "Satin Sheets", Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Candlelight/Love", Jerry Jeff Walker's "Northeast Texas Women", Waylon Jennings' "Satin Sheets", New Grass Revival's "Watermelon Man", and many more.

Since that landmark first release, Ramsey has toured only occasionally, spending time instead with his family, honing his craft in Austin, Nashville and London, educating himself in the science of audio recording and composing new songs. His new material has received critical acclaim, including Lyle Lovett's recordings of "Sleepwalkin', "North Dakota" and "That's Right (You're Not From Texas"), as well as Eric Clapton's recording of "Positively"

Ramsey's infrequent personal appearances always garner excitement among some of the top critics in the country as well as from his fellow artists:

"His cozy, orderly, tiny-detail songs express a willful turnabout from hippie chaos, a visceral reaction particular to the early 1970's. His songs are sweet, emotionally guarded and often musically complex, fitting strains of melody together that seem as if they ought not connect,
expertly using rhythmic displacement as the words and chords unspool .... Perfection is
terrifying, and some of these songs felt spooky."

- Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

"You might have not seen him lately, but if you've listened to Shawn, Lyle or Jimmie Dale, you've heard him." - John T. Davis, The Austin American Statesman

"Even if Ramsey had made a dozen more albums, this would still be the record that no home should be without."

- No Depression

"When I got his record, I loved everything on it. I heard some Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner in there. It was a little more literary than most of the Texas stuff."

- Jimmy Buffett

"Everybody owned his record when I lived in Austin. That's because it's great and them Texans knew it. I think Lyle's great, but tell me he didn't learn something from Willis."

- Shawn Colvin

"I learned every song off his record. I went to sce him every time he played, got tennis shoes like his. I wanted to be Willis Alan Ramsey."

- Lyle Lovett

Drew Landry

Sometime after the O' Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack revived a need for Traditional Country and Folk music, Drew Landry opened a Honky Tonk & began writing songs while working in the Swamps of Southwest Louisiana.

​He shut down the dance hall and moved to Texas before landing a gig opening for Hank Williams III. After picking a few tunes for Kris Kristofferson, the legend told a crowd that Landry’s song, Last Man Standing was, "the best he’d heard in 30 years". ​Since hearing those words of encouragement, Landry's shared a stage with Merle Haggard, Dr. John, Robert Earl Keen, Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Winter, Lazy Lester, The Angola State Prison Band, Billy Joe Shaver, Doug Kershaw, Slim Harpo’s Band, Charlie Louvin, David Allen Coe and many other more talented an less notable artists.

His first album, Keep What’s Left was proclaimed “The Equivalent to Lomax's field recordings for the 21st Century.” by americana.uk. Share Cropper’s Whine, was touted, “a Landmark Cajun-inspired Masterwork”. Country-Chart wrote that, Juvenile Delinquent , a song about his youth, "vividly illustrates why music lovers need to know Drew Landry. "  

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The Troubadour often composes songs about life-changing events and supports specific causes. Category 5 was written while helping people recover from the storms of 2005. Landry, himself a veteran, wrote the song Veterans Drive after spending time with VFW residents of the St. Cloud VA. Most recently, Landry's work to help locate missing persons in Indian Country culminated with the advent of a missing persons database & the music video for his tune, Hey Sister.

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The former Guardsman helped citizens on the Gulf Coast deal with the worst Oil Spill in US history through a documentary film, “The Restoration”. Landry’s singing testimony to the Oil Spill Commission went viral and charity-single, BP Blues was released on the Warner Label. He went on to co-produce a Bobby Charles inspired Solution to Pollution EP with Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) and he continues to work with those who believe music can change the world.

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After a near death collision with an 18 wheeler, Landry worked on a series of short films with Tribal communities in Alaska before moving to the Blackfeet Nation in Northern Montana. He recovered by serving the community of Browning Montana as an Extension Agent.