If you’re one of the 88 million people who stumbled across a video of an 11-year-old kid yodeling in the aisles of Walmart in 2018, you may be familiar with Mason Ramsey.
Now, six years later, that young troubadour is all grown up — and ready to release a full-length debut album.
“The odds of that happening to me were very slim,” Ramsey, 17, told Us Weekly exclusively, reflecting on the viral video that started it all while promoting his forthcoming album, I’ll See You in My Dreams, which comes out September 20. “I’m just so grateful. Thinking back to that moment, it just gives me chills because that could have happened to anyone else.”
He continued: “Someone else could have been there and done that, but for some reason it was me. I’m not gonna question it, but I’m so thankful that it happened to me.”
Ramsey inherited his love for nostalgic country music from his grandparents, who raised him in southern Illinois and encouraged him to seriously pursue music. Ramsey says “everything that I’ve done throughout my career is really inspired by” his grandparents, and he cites Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orison, Ricky Nelson and Hank Williams — whose song “Lovesick Blues” he was singing in the original viral video — as musical influences.
“I’m just trying to make people happy and inspire people to do what I did in that video,” Ramsey added. “Just do what you love. Do what inspires you and moves you every single day because that might happen to you. What happened to me might happen to you.”
Ahead of the release of I’ll See You in My Dreams — which leans into a nostalgic feel that will make you question if you’re listening to “that Walmart yodeling boy” or Elvis himself — Ramsey has collaborated with some of the biggest contemporary artists of today.
His song “Shake Shake (All Night Long)” was featured on the soundtrack of the summer blockbuster Twisters alongside country legends like Miranda Lambert and Luke Combs. Earlier this summer, Ramsey surprised fans when he joined Lana Del Rey on stage at her stadium tour debut at Fenway Park to sing a duet of his song “Blue Over You.”
“I put out a video on my social [media] saying, Lana, we need to collab,” he explained to Us. “Then about a week or so later, she responded and she was like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
He continued: “It was one of those comments where you had to be there to really take in all the emotions that were going through the air, and it was just really awesome. Something that you would’ve had to have been there to experience.”
Ramsey cites his favorite Del Rey songs as “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” and “Summertime Sadness,” and sings her praises as a future country artist.
“If she gets into country music, I guarantee you, country music will be changed for the better,” he told Us. “I’ve been trying my best to bring back the older country music. I think if she can get into country music, she can change country music. And I don’t know what the results will be, but I guarantee they’ll be huge.”
His voice may have matured, and he spouts wisdom well beyond his years, but at the end of the day, Ramsey is still a 17-year-old boy who writes music about getting his heart broken and loves an Internet meme as much as the rest of Us.
When asked what viral video he loves the most, aside from his own, of course, Ramsey quickly responded with “the Water-melon vine, way back when Vine was a thing, it was really good.”
I’ll See You in My Dreams comes out September 20
