11-year-old yodels new life into a Hank Williams classic
On June 11, 1949, Hank Williams’s rendition of “Lovesick Blues,” on his debut night at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, prompted six encores from a crowd of 3,000 people.
Though Williams didn’t write the song, his version of “Lovesick Blues” helped catapult the 26year-old singer to country music fame. It remained No. 1 on the charts for 16 weeks, selling 11 million copies. Less than four years later, Williams died of alcohol-induced heart failure at the age of 29.
Now, nearly 70 years after Williams’ Grand Ole Opry show, “Lovesick Blues” is back at the top of the music charts, climbing to No. 4 on Spotify’s Viral 50 Global. A live radio broadcast of Williams’s “Lovesick Blues” from his 1950 compilation album, “The Garden Spot Programs,” has seen a 2,452 per cent spike in Spotify streams between March 26 and April 9, according to Forbes.
And it’s all because of an 11year-old boy yodelling in the air mattress aisle at an Illinois Walmart.
Millions of people are now familiar with Mason Ramsey, the toe-tapping “Yodelling Walmart Boy” with the red bow tie, black cowboy boots and massive belt buckle. A video of Mason singing “Lovesick Blues” at his local Walmart went viral early last week, and in the days since, he’s enjoyed some celebrity in his own right.
He’s racked up 183,000 followers on Twitter and 847,000 followers on Instagram. He landed a spot on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Tuesday, where he learned he won a $15,000 scholarship from Walmart, as well a chance to perform this coming Saturday at the Grand Ole Opry — just like Williams.
Mason is from Golconda, Illinois, a town of about 700 people just across the Ohio River from Kentucky. He lives with his grandparents, and has been singing since he was 3 years old. He has grown up listening to his grandfather’s Hank Williams records in his basement — his grandfather says Mason started to sing as soon as he could talk.
By the time he was 4 years old he was already performing for crowds, singing for Josh Turner at the Carson Center in Paducah, Kentucky, and opening for Gene Watson by the time he was 5, according to a local radio station. He started playing guitar at age 6, younger than when Williams got his first guitar.
The 11-year-old sang “Lovesick Blues” on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” show Tuesday.
After his performance, DeGeneres told him he would be performing at the Opry this coming Saturday. “Oh, my God,” he said.