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certain favorites
United Press International
They’re breaking up old gangs at CBS as Edith Bunker, Olivia
Walton and Danny Williams desart their precincts.
When CBS announced its new schedule Tuesday, it revealed that
“All In The Family” will become “Archie Bunker’s Place,” with Archie
devoting his time to his Queens’ tavern and Edith dropping by
occasionally. Michael Learned will appear as Olivia on Walton’s
Mountain only 10 times, and James MacArthur is gone for good from
“Hawaii Five-0.”
Gone completely will be “Kaz,” “Paper Chase,” “Good Times,”
and the Mary Tyler Moore Hour (she’ll return in a sitcom in the fall of
I980). Limited series such as “Billy,” “Time Express” and “Dear
Detective” also are off.
“Paris” stars James Earl Jones as a Los Angeles detective cap
tain — and if anybody can bring back the cop show, it’s an actor of
Jones’ caliber.
“We’re Cruisin’” is a teenage hour that CBS is spotting opposite
“Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley.”
Fiction
1. The Matarese Circle —
Robert Ludlum
2. Gold as Gold — Joseph Hel
ler
3. War and Remembrance —
Herman Wouk
4. SS-GB — Len Deighton
5. Hanta Yo — Ruth Beebe Hill
6. Chesapeake — James A.
Michener
7. Overload — Arthur Hailey
8. The Third World War — Gen.
John Hackett
g. Dubin's Lives — Bernard
Malamud
10. The Stories of John
Cheever — John Cheever
Nonfiction
1. The Complete Scarsdale
Medica Diet — HmnrTar-
nower and Samm Sinclair
Baker
2. How To Prosper During the
Coming Bad Years —
Howard J. Ruff
3. Lauren Bacall: By Myself
— Lauren Bacall
4. Sophia: Her Own Story —
Sophia Loren
5. Bronx Zoo — Sparky Lyle
6. Mommie Dearest — Christ
ina Crawford
7. A Distant Mirror — Barbara
Tuchman
8. Linda Goodman’s Love
Signs — Linda Goodman’s
instein’s Universe— Nigel
C alder
10. To Set the Record Straight
— John Sirica
Photo by Colin Cromble
Not “too big” to perform on campus, Willis Allen Ram
sey wowed an audience in the Basement Coffeehouse.
—Top 25 Albums—
(Record World)
1. Spirits Having Flown — Bee Gees
2. Minute by Minute — Doobie Brothers
3. 2 Hot! — Peaches & Herb
4. Breakfast in America — Supertramp
5. Dire Straits — Dire Straits
6. Desolation Angels — Bad Company
7. Go West — Village People
8. Van Halen II — Van Halen
9. Parallel Lines — Blondie
10. Blondes Have More Fun — Rod Stewart
11. Livin' Inside Your Love — Geroge Benson
12. We Are Family — Sister Sledge
13. Enlightened Rogues — The Allman Brothers Band
14. Cheap Trick at Budokan — Cheap Trick
15. 52nd Street — Billy Joel
16. Briefcase Full of Blues — Blues Brothers
17. Dark Horse — George Harrison
18. Bustin’ Out of L Seven — Rick James
19. The Cars — The Cars
20. Instant Funk — Salsoul
21. Evolution — Journey
22. Cruisin’ — Village People
23. Disco Nights — G. Q.
24. Destiny — Jacksons
25. Music Box Dancer — Frank Mills
Ramsey:
By LYLE LOVETT
Battalion Staff
The past week has been an ex
ceptional one for live music in
Bryan-College Station.
Tonight, Eric Taylor will perform
at Grins. Monday and Tuesday it
was The Shake Russell Band play
ing there to a packed house. And it
all started last Friday and Saturday
with Willis Alan Ramsey at the
MSC’s Basement Coffeehouse.
Besides perhaps Townes Van
Zandt, who played the Basement in
the Spring of 1976, Ramsey is the
biggest name performer the Base
ment has booked.
He released an album in 1972 on
Shelter Records, a label that also
recorded folks like Leon Russell,
J.J. Cale and Phoebe Snow.
To his credit as a songwriter,
America and The Captain and
Tenille recorded Ramsey's “Mus
krat Candlelight,” Jimmy Buffett
recorded his “Ballad of Spider
John,” Rusty Wier recorded
“Painted Lady” and Maria Muldaur
will have one of Ramsey’s newer
songs called “Positively” on an
album to be released in July.
Ramsey was also identified with
the Texas “progressive country”
pseudo- movement in the early ’70s
by Jan Reid in “The Improbable
Rise of Redneck Rock.” Reid de
voted chapters, among others, to
Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Mur-
phey, Willie Nelson and Ramsey,
putting the “boy from Alabama,” as
Reid called him, in good company.
“I used to say, Tm from Birmin
gham, the Pittsburg of the South,”’
Ramsey said in Friday’s show. “I
never knew what a wrong thing that
was to add until I went to Pittsburg.”
The crowd at the Basement last
weekend seemed to not really be in
touch with Ramsey as a performer.
Last weekend’s crowd seemed only
to have heard of Ramsey.
“What does he look like?” one
woman asked a girlfriend before the
Friday show. “Is he dark?”
“He’s not as dark as he looks on
the album,” her friend answered. “I
saw him on TV once and he looks
different than he does on the al
bum.” Outside, a Basement com-
mitttee member and a man were
talking:
“Did the contract say anything
about quiet?” the man asked in a
tone that implied his authority on the
subject of Ramsey. “Because I’ve
seen him in Austin before and he
walked off the stage because the
crowd was noisy.”
What the “authority” didn’t rec
ognize as he spoke of Ramsey in
the third person was that Ramsey
was standing right next to him.
Ramsey agreed to a between-
sets interview during the Saturday
show while he ate supper. He said
he and his manager had wanted to
eat at the Texan Restaurant but
‘to go’at the Texan
didn’t get into town early enough.
So they ordered “the first take-out in
the history of the Texan,” and stood
over paper plates of steak and lobs
ter at a workbench in the MSC bicy
cle shop.
“This is a classy way to do an
interview,” Ramsey’s manager Jim
Geisler said with a laugh, holding
his filet mignon in one hand and a
baked potato in the other.
“It’s still warm in the center,”
Ramsey said, biting off a chunk of
his filet.
It’s been seven years since
Ramsey’s album was released.
Fans have been crying for another
ever since.
He said one reason he hasn’t yet
recorded another album was his
experience making the first. It took
nearly a year to do and was rec
orded in five different studios from
Tyler to Nashville to Los Angeles.
Ramsey was 21 when the album
was released.
“I was not happy with the differ
ent situations I was in. I thought
maybe different studios, different
engineers, different musicians
would help change things. I don’t
think I was quite as experienced as I
wanted to be at that time.
“I'd been playing professionally
about two years. And so I was just
sort of picked up by Shelter at a real
formitive time and plopped down in
a 16-track studio and told to make a
record and give’em a call when I
was through,” he said.
“It was good over a long period of
time because I started out a long
time ago trying to cope with produc
tion and learn about it. But I think
just for the initial deal there it was
bad because I had to take such a
long period of time and get so dis
couraged to make that first album.
“I liked the record but I just didn’t
think it was as good as it could be.
And I just wanted to learn more
about being able to come over bet
ter in that medium and how to deal
with those weird people at Shelter
Records. I think for a while I was
intimidated and wanted really to get
a footing.
“We’ve been waiting for Shelter’s
contract to run out over the past
seven years, which it just has —
they wouldn’t let me go. So I was
tied to them and not wanting to work
with them that much.
“It was sort of a you-come-to-us
type attitude. It was a little bit hard.”
Still, Ramsey had an album and a
recording contract on a nationally
distributed label. And he was only
21.
“Well I did a good interview I
guess,” he said, explaining his early
success. “I felt like I was on top of
things. I’d written a lot of the songs
on that first album.
“Right now, I’m trying to finish a
soundtrack album for a movie by
Lorimar,” he said. “I think it’s gonna
be distributed by Universal. And I’m
writing the score for it and also rec
ording it.
So fans can look for the new
album in... “1982,” Ramsey said
with a sarcastic laugh.
"Don’t let him print that,” Geisler
said.
“No,” Ramsey said, “uh... soon. I
hate to say a recording date. I’ve got
this soundtrack to do and after that
I’ll be starting to record an album.”
Ramsey and Geisler continued
eating — hands first.
“Their lobster’s not as good as
their steak,” Ramsey said. “You got
any shrimp left?”
“Yeah,” Geisler grunted be
tween mouth-fulls.
“Can I have just a little bite?”
Ramsey asked reaching for
Geisler’s plate. “What do you think
of this lobster?”
“It’s not too bad,” Geisler said,
looking at the mess they were mak
ing.
“That’s one thing,” he said laugh
ing, “I always work with classy
acts.“
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