Appearance by viral Yodel Boy draws crowd

From viral internet fame to Coachella to Chattanooga, Mason Ramsey, also known as the Yodel Boy, attracted hundreds of people to Walmart on Gunbarrel Road Wednesday evening for a pop-up concert.

A video of the boy’s late March performance of Hank Williams Sr.’s “Lovesick Blues” has gained over 40 million views and inspired many

parodies and remixes.

Ramsey, 11, is originally from a small town in Southern Illinois called Golconda. Only 622 people lived there in 2016. With it being so small, Walmart is the only store the town has, Ramsey said on “Ellen” in April.

The performance propelled him into internet meme fame, and landed him a gig at the Coachella

music festival in Indio, Calif., with Whethan, a 19-year-old DJ and music producer from Chicago.

Since then, Ramsey has surprised many with his pop-up performances at a number of Walmarts in Tennessee.

Walmart manager April Odom said the store wasn’t contacted by

Ramsey’s team until Tuesday. But she said they were glad to host the boy’s performance. It’s “good, clean fun,” she said.

Wednesday’s crowd consisted mostly of young girls swooning over Ramsey, posters in hand. One read, “Ramsey 4 president.” Children and teenagers yelled, “Yodel nation!” from the parking lot as they waited for Ramsey to make his appearance.

Even before the concert was set to begin, high-schoolers were tailgating the event in shiny new cars in the Walmart parking lot.

Ben Borroughs was one of them. He said he and his friends heard about Ramsey through the viral internet memes and when someone told them he would be in Chattanooga, they thought it would be a good spot to hang out and have fun.

Ramsey performed about four songs before moving on, but not before shaking some fans’ hands through the window of his tour bus.

Ramsey’s publicists were not available for comment, so it’s not clear if his tour of Walmart stores will continue, but he did announce his next stop will be in Birmingham, Ala., and he is slated to perform at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville this weekend.

“If the good Lord’s willin’ and the creeks don’t rise, I’ll see y’all again this Saturday night,” he said before walking off stage.

STAFF PHOTO BY TIM BARBER Yodeler Mason Ramsey sings and wows a crowd of hundreds Wednesday evening in the Gunbarrel Road Walmart parking lot. The 11-year-old has gone viral on the web in recent days. His next performance is in Birmingham, Ala.

STAFF PHOTO BY TIM BARBER Mason Ramsey gets a reaction from the crowd Wednesday in the Gunbarrel Walmart parking lot.