The list of twenty-something’s who play guitar on their knee is endless. They perch around campuses and street corners, playing to the open-ended possibility of creative tune or recognition.

For that flock of acoustic solos out there, hope lies in those that “made it.” And what better example than young twenty-something Willy Mason (sounds like Willy Nelson sorta, huh?). Mason, a Martha’s Vineyard native, is only twenty years old and has already built a resume very distinguishable from most kids his age: over 100,000 albums sold overseas for Where The Humans Eat, his debut album, opened for Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Kweller, My Morning Jacket, Beth Orton, and is set to open for Radiohead this summer.

All of this before a legal drink.

But what sets Mason apart from his hopeful peers? Right from the get-go of Where the Humans Eat, Mason tells you. “Gotta keep movin’…gotta keep movin’…gotta keep movin’ with your troubled mind a followin’.” The opening track, appropriately titled, “Gotta Keep Movin’,” starts Mason’s album, and career, at a road trippin’ beat, something Mark Knopfler would appreciate. The drums are played by Mason’s younger (by 5 years) brother, Sam Mason, who might be more of a standout considering he’s barely in high school. Mason the elder plays the rest of the instruments and hides the two-man show well.

The title track “Where the Humans Eat” might be Mason’s star mark. At his concert at Avalon on April 8th, Mason’s soft voice and the accompanying flutist made this song almost too pretty for a concert setting like Avalon. In other words, it needed open air and seats around a table, not dark, neon lights and that dim bar atmosphere that can cheapen an acoustic set. Playing in the background at an easygoing pace, the album would do well at a dinner party.

Remember the name Willy Mason, with his everyman guitar in hand and those wide rim glasses our parents wore in their school pictures. In this post-Cash era, the opportunity is there awaiting, for Mason or any other twenty-something with the courage of their convictions and the right tune to back it.