NPR’s World Cafe had Asheville’s own Tyler Ramsey on the show Tuesday night. Click to go hear it. Here’s the accompanying post:
Heartwarming, delicate, and comforting, Tyler Ramsey’s music showcases a thoughtful approach to his craft. Ramsey’s experiences growing up in the mountains of North Carolina — a common path for traveling blues musicians — inspired him to incorporate a wide variety of folk styles. He spent years in pursuit of his own sound, perfecting his guitar playing and experimentations with the piano.
And this NewsOK story has some nice detail about Ramsey and his Band of Horses bandmates:
The singer-songwriter lives in the northern burg, an artsy, music-friendly community nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, while his newly-acquired bandmates — including multi-instrumentalist-singer Ben Bridwell — live in the town to the south, a coastal suburb of Charleston.
“They actually were there before Seattle, and they have family around there,” Ramsey said of the band that has recorded two critically-lauded albums for the Seattle-based independent Sub Pop label. “And so they all, for various reasons, ended up wanting to go back there and be closer to family.”
Ramsey first crossed paths with Band of Horses at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, where the group was recording its second full-length collection of songs, “Cease to Begin,” and he was cutting his solo debut on Echo Mountain Records, “A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea.”
Ramsey had long been acquainted with the band’s new bass player, Bill Reynolds, a former member of another Sub Pop group, the Blue Rags, who made two albums of distinctive ragtime/bluegrass/punk fusion in the late ’90s.
“That was a big deal for Asheville,” Ramsey said. “People definitely noticed them and they were great. They kind of encapsulated a lot of what Asheville was at the time.”
Asheville’s music scene was — and still is — steeped in musical traditions that could safely be grouped under an Americana heading, having produced such luminaries as singer-songwriters David Wilcox, Malcolm Holcombe and, of Govt. Mule and Allman Brothers Band fame, guitarist Warren Haynes.
It’s where Cincinnati-born Ramsey has been honing his craft for 15 years, developing a finger-picking guitar style and songwriting flair that has landed him regular work as a session musician as well as a solo artist. As Ramsey and members of Band of Horses got to know each other, they began to hang together and jam at a beach house in South Carolina. Ramsey quickly hit it off with Bridwell, who asked him to open for the band on tour and come on board as their new guitar player, replacing the departed Robin Perringer.