For The Morning

Inspired by the lush, deep green and stunning landscape of his home in the mountains outside of Asheville, NC, Ramsey threads rock, country and folk into a rich, new branch of American roots music all his own on For The Morning. Listen to the absorbing, wistful lead track, “A Dream of Home” HERE.

This album came about in the midst of a lot of change,” explains Ramsey. “The birth of my daughter, a move to the country, and the steady realization that I needed to switch the road I was on in my life as a musician and songwriter. I tried to express and balance images of life as a constantly traveling and touring musician with the more connected life I live at home and the time I spend hiking in the mountains where I live.”

For the Morning, written and produced by Ramsey, connects the listener to this setting with dexterous guitar fingerpicking and radiant acoustic piano; affecting pedal steel and gorgeous languid vocals. Ramsey, along with engineer Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne, Joan Shelley, Strand of Oaks) and Seth Kauffman of Floating Action (and touring musician for Jim James, Ray LaMontagne) recorded a clutch of Ramsey demos at La La Land studios in Louisville, KY. For The Morning is complemented by spots from several guest musicians, including Joan Shelley, Thad Cockrell, and Molly Parden who sing harmony on various tracks, the pedal steel player Russ Paul, Nathan Salsburg and Gareth Liddiard from The Drones on guitar.

“A Dream of Home,” one of the album’s many standouts, was written on a day off during a Horses tour. Ramsey holed himself up in a hotel room outside of Nashville and began writing about that familiar tug of greener grass, wondering if every musician’s dream of touring the world to play for huge audiences was actually all it was cracked up to be. The absorbing centerpiece “Breaking A Heart” glows with sublime piano chords and beautiful guitar playing while Ramsey’s pristine vocals are left hanging in the air like mist. Elsewhere “Evening Country” is an updated, country music version of the song “Evening Kitchen” he wrote for the Band of Horses’ Grammy-nominated album Infinite Arms that swings with delicate harmonies and pedal steel.