gary1668465 + Musician in Kings Mountain, NC

SEEKING

ABOUT

The Most Famous Man You’ve Never Hear Of:
Gary Ramsey

Nicknamed “Bear,” which is fitting due to his stature and protective nature, Gary Ramsey performs under his given name. He has hobnobbed with some of the biggest rock stars in our modern era. I did not hear the entire list, because “I don’t want anybody to judge me based on that,” he said in his ol’ shucks” way. But the ones I managed to hear referenced during our conversation are Black Sabbath, Guns’n’ Roses, Metallica, and Appalachian’s musical pride, Doc Watson.
His modesty is part of his charm. As is his humor.
“I’m a musical whore,” he said, which in reality, isn’t that far from the truth. “I’ll jam with anybody,” he said, reaffirming that this guy is all about music. His music has passed to hand to hand all across the globe, and likely even further. His encounters with UFOs would be a great paper by itself, but back on planet Earth he has done numerous collaborations was with Finland’s Pekka Loikannen, under the name “The Ramsey Loikkanen Project.” They met on the now defunct . This past weekend he sold a song to Playground Records.
Ramsey isn’t just a talented guitarist. He excels in songwriting and lyrics. This “poet of the hillbillies” is what first caught my attention. Currently he resides in Kings Mountain, with his wife and two stepdaughters, in a modest house near the highway. The unassuming front of his home belies the backyard, which reminded me of a nature preserve with its winding path through an encyclopedia of tree types and jutting boulders. Ramsey spends a lot of time here. This is where he comes to clear his mind and listen to the voice that delivers his songs.
Ramsey’s “musical whoreness” can also be explained by the numerous instruments he has mastered, including guitar, bass, and some piano, but also by the various types of music he has embraced. He has been the songwriter and lyricist for country and bluegrass, but also the frontman and lead singer in the heavy metal, punk, and rock genres. Most of his songs are “about the freedom of traditional rural life” (Lipscomb) which includes what many would term “white trash.” But Ramsey doesn’t identify himself with categories like that. His mentality “is an ancient, hard-earned, local kind of freedom” that has been compared to the “kind of freedom that the nineteenth-century 'peasant poet' John Clare wrote about” (Lipscomb). Ramsey simply writes and sings what he wants, and if you don’t like it, then don’t listen. It’s as simple as that.
While Ramsey’s music is uniquely southern, the “universalization of a generalized notion of southernness as cultural shorthand is not limited to music.” This is apparent in Ramsey’s stories and tall tales that he uses to amuse his listeners. For example, when talking about the weather he said “it was so hot today all the corn in my barn popped into popcorn...my horses thought it was snow and they froze to death... Also, some guy came to the door trying to sell me powdered water but I didn't know what to add to it.” He’s got an entire suitcase full of funnies like these that he uses to entertain his fans in between his songs.
Ramsey is also humble when talking about his musical beginnings. He was given a guitar and he was able to remember the finger placements easily. The music just came to him, he explained. Then he went on to write his first song, “If Loneliness Had a Name” at age 17. Interestingly, he still sings this song at his shows and by the number of requests he gets for it, it is still a fan favorite after 40 years. Ramsey excels in crafting the “singability of the melodie” and makes his music “in the old vein” of sitting with a guitar and playing what he hears (Arant). This is evident in his song “Down on Me” where he laments not having financial security. There is a brief pause just before he sings “I’m used to losing….. I never win.” These silences are profound in the effect of his songs. They are “essential in shaping noise into music, in making sense of sound. Cultural narratives are shaped by what is said, but also by what is left out” (Thompson).
When I first approached Ramsey about this project, he said he was happy to help but wanted to be clear that he doesn’t consider his type of music to be Appalachian. To show me an example of Appalachian music, he sent me a link of an old woman in a dress down to her ankles who was playing the banjo. Like me, Ramsey thought that Appalachian music was contained within the Appalachian mountains. I shared with him our class map of the Appalachian region, and showed him that he could, indeed, be considered an Appalachian musician. He seemed mildly surprised. The point was driven home further when I shared that Earl Scruggs was raised not far from Ramsey’s home. As a future paper, it would be greatly interesting to further pursue this sense if identity (or non-identity), and learn “why individual businesses or individual people identify with one regional identity over another” (Cooper). However, I will save that topic for a future class.
Ironically, this man with seemingly no boundaries verbally was also under the assumption of regional boundaries and was unaware of the expanse and blurring of the lines that encompass this region. These "mythical boundaries" of Appalachia leads one to “focus[ed] on geography as a marker of Appalachian identity” (Webb-Sunderhaus). Upon further study, Loyal Jones was quoted as identifying “ten values” that are “especially important to Appalachians: religion; independence, self-reliance, and pride; neighborliness; familism; personalism; humility and modesty; love of place; patriotism; sense of beauty; and sense of humor” (Webb-Sunderhaus). The idea of religion can easily be seen in Ramsey’s “Southern Man: A Rebel’s Prayer” and his sense of humor shines through in “Barred.” Independence and self-reliance are at the root of his song “The Ride” and his love of place is magnified in “Carolina Queens.” His humility and modesty are evident in just about every song; he never sings to praise himself, but rather to identify and distinguish what he sees taking place in the world around him. This is evidenced in “Way of the World” and “Down on Me,” which focuses on economic struggles and “Dead Dream Junkie” which is a commentary on the current opioid crisis.
In addition, Ramsey’s “sense of place” as a southerner becomes “one of the unifying values of mountain people” and “makes it hard for [him] to leave the mountains, and when we do, we long to return" (Webb-Sunderhaus). Ramsey spent several years in Los Angeles, hoping to pay his dues in the artistic world but found that California was not where he felt at home. He hitchhiked back across the country and settled back in Kings Mountain, smack dab between the larger metropolises of Shelby and Gastonia, and made a name for himself on the local music scene as well as using technology to expand into having global collaborators and listeners.
One of Ramsey’s signature songs is “Stumpy,” which I suggest not listening to if you are easily offended. This song was based not on a true story, but rather on an idea that was used for humor around a campfire one night. Many of his songs make it perfectly clear that when writing lyrics about his home and his experiences, Ramsey does not provide a “detoxified South[s] of which Andy Griffith's Mayberry is representative" (Vernon). Ramsey’s lyrics focus on economic subordinantion including being in a lower class, freedom and desire, and loss; in a nutshell, white trash. He has also had to push back against the derogatory views of hillbillies that “perpetuated throughout the great Depression when ‘images of violent mountaineers were somewhat displaced by images of poor, ignorant, lazy hillbillies popularized in nationally syndicated cartoons such as Li'l Abner and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’” (Cooper). If anything, Ramsey is proud of his background and uses these stereotypes to his advantage in his music. He shared that numerous times he has gone into a venue and been treated like a second class citizen, only to watch everyone’s jaw drop when he opens his mouth and starts to sing.
One of Ramsey’s musical influences is Lynyrd Skynyrd, and like the members in this band, he “evoke[s] regional characteristics” in his songs which helps to “create a sense of community among listeners with similar backgrounds” (Zwier). The relationship between his song and the audience “helps to explain the popularity…..at concerts, there are 3,000 to 4,000 people who all think the same," a fan said when talking about the band Normaal, who makes music similar to Ramsey’s (Zwier). In this way, “music functions not only to reflect but often to mobilize feelings of regionalism” as is evident in Ramsey’s catalog. Like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Normaal, Ramsey represents “the rebellion of the countryside” but yet avoids the shameful history of the South that “was inextricably linked with the region's troublesome history of slavery and segregation (Zwier). All of that is part of the past, and Ramsey likes to focus on the right here and now, “cause that’s really all we have,” he said.
Ramsey’s “reputation for being an intimidating and belligerent [band] of hard-drinking rednecks” helped him to carve out his musical spot. Like others from the south, he “display[s] markers of [his] identity by singing in thick southern accents and displaying a huge Confederate battle flag” (Zwier). If you look on be at some of the videos he has produced, the Confederate flag is visible in several but is most prominent in his video for “Southern Man” and shows that Ramsey is proud of his southern heritage. His songs typically find favor among rural, working class whites and “revolt[s] against the dominant conventions of middle class manners, decency, and civility” (Zwier). Much like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ramsey’s “strategy” was to reinforce “the negative national image of country people” which includes “loud music, hard drinking, fast driving, and wrecking cars” much like “outlaws, who did not care about what other people considered to be socially acceptable” (Zwier). This definition fits Ramsey’s personality perfectly. His songs have much in common with other southern musicians, in the fact that 
… southern rockers' white trash selves are commodities they sell to audiences. While southern rockers' records are not released by major labels, nor do they sell albums in the millions, they do have fans who consistently pay a cover charge to see them in local bars and buy their independently produced recordings. These consumers of white trash manhood enable many southern rockers to make a living-though usually a meager one-playing and selling original music, which is quite difficult without corporate sponsorship (Zwier).
Ramsey has been playing since his teenage years, and like other southern rockers, he
…embrace[s] the symbols of white trash….where they use the labels redneck, hillbilly, white trash, to market themselves as cultural products. They similarly display the confederate flag on their stages, in their dressing rooms, on their merchandise, and their bodies. While southern rockers are not the only entrepreneurs in the culture industry to use these symbols of southern white trash, unlike most others they celebrate rather than mock it (Zwier).

Much like Zwier’s description of southern rockers, Ramsey “downplays, rejects, or ridicules a key means of upward economic mobility: education. All the interviewees who mentioned their educational history said that they stopped school as soon as possible-even, in one case, after the eighth grade-or they wished they had stopped sooner” (Zwier). This is almost like reading Ramsey’s diary. As the oldest of seven children, Ramsey dropped out of school at age 16 when his father was put in prison. He went to work and brought his check home to his mother, who used it to feed and clothe his younger siblings. I am aware of how cliché this sounds, but it is nonetheless true. Even so, Ramsey does not present himself as "backwards," but rather as a “reclaim[ed] southern white trash” who is “overcoming the challenges and surviving rural poverty with limited resources” (Zwier). This rural poverty is glorified in song by “emphasizing survival skills that are culturally defined as masculine, implying they are more manly than college-educated city dwellers, and more authentic than pop country singers who may also appropriate symbols of rural manhood” (Zwier).
To take it a step further, Ramsey is aware of how the
“mainstream media often stereotypes poor, rural, southern men as being violent drunks. Southern rockers reinforce this perception by doing identity work that glorifies drinking and aggression as quintessential elements of white trash manhood. Southern rock concerts are drinking events for musicians and audiences alike, and these men honor beverages that authenticate their underclass, masculine and rural statuses. Beer is a masculine beverage (Lemle & Mishkind, 1989), and southern rockers further connect this beverage to class by drinking only cheap brands, particularly Pabst Blue Ribbon or PBR” (Zwier). 
Ramsey does not disappoint, as PBR is his drink of choice when performing.
Another feature of Ramsey’s music is by singing the virtues of whiskey or moonshine, such as in his song “Women Weed and Whiskey.” Ramsey still knows people that make moonshine the old fashioned way, which is not only a source of pride but also the fact that moonshine “is considered masculine because of its unpleasant taste and potency (Lemle & Mishkind, 1989). In addition, moonshine has a historic connection to Appalachia and the rural south. It is an illegal whiskey made from corn in homemade stills, usually located in the deep woods as to avoid discovery from authorities” (Zwier).
Ramsey takes the cultural stereotype of southern, poor, white men as violent drunks and instead celebrates their virtue in song. His catchy melodies support his pride in the south, and now that I have shared our class map with him, his pride in Appalachia. Although he is often stereotyped, Ramsey refuses to be put into a box with a label smacked on his forehead. As long as he is able, he will continue to write the type of music that he likes and share it with his fans. So rather than being the most famous man you’ve never heard of, the next time you hear about Gary Ramsey you can say, “yeah. I know that guy.”

 
Bibliography

Arant, A. (2015). Parsing the Pleasures of Southern Music Studies. Mississippi Quarterly, 68(1/2), 34. Retrieved from ://search.ebscohost/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=123615487&site=ehost-live

Brady, E. (2014). "Are you from dixie?": Geography and iconography in country music's southern realms of memory. Journal of American Folklore, 127(504), 230-232,243. Retrieved from ://nclive/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=://search.proquest/docview/1517530308?accountid=12914

Cooper, C. A., Knotts, H. G., & Elders, K. L. (2011). A geography of Appalachian identity. Southeastern Geographer, 51(3), 457+. Retrieved from ://link.galegroup/apps/doc/A273714325/SCIC?u=nclive&sid=SCIC&xid=7df9071b

Eastman, J. T., & Schrock, D. P. (2008). Southern Rock Musicians’ Construction Of White Trash. Race, Gender & Class, 15(1), 205-219. Retrieved from ://nclive/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=://search.proquest/docview/218845956?accountid=12914

Lawless, Lisa, and Gary Ramsey. “Interview with Gary Ramsey.” 15 June 2019

Lipscomb, S. B. (2018). Peasant poets, blogging shepherds, and hillbilly memoirists-A review essay. Christian Scholar's Review, 48(1), 51-61. Retrieved from ://nclive/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=://search.proquest/docview/2123040590?accountid=12914

Thompson, D. J. (2006). Searching for silenced voices in appalachian music.GeoJournal, 65(1-2), 67-78. doi:://dx.doi/10.1007/s10708-006-705

Vernon, Z. (2016). Toward a post-appalachian sense of place. Journal of American Studies, 50(3), 639-658. doi:://dx.doi/10.1017/S0021875815001127

Webb-Sunderhaus, S. (2016). "Keep the appalachian, drop the redneck": Tellable student narratives of appalachian identity. College English, 79(1), 11-33. Retrieved from ://nclive/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=://search.proquest/docview/1817062794?accountid=12914

Zwiers, M. (2015). Rebel rock: Lynyrd skynyrd, normaal, and regional identity.Southern Cultures, 21(3), 85-102,125. Retrieved from ://nclive/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=://search.proquest/docview/1733925678?accountid=12914

Screen name:

gary1668465

Member since:

Dec 18 2022

Active over 1 month ago

Level of commitment:

Very Committed

Years playing music:

40

Gigs played:

Over 100

Tend to practice:

More than 3 times per week

Available to gig:

4-5 nights a week

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Days

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too many to name

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Vocalist:

Expert

Vocalist - Bass:

Expert

Vocalist - Baritone:

Expert

Vocalist - Soprano:

Expert

Lead Guitar:

Expert

Acoustic Guitar:

Expert

Bass Guitar:

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my vocals

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