David Ramirez

One Liner: Austin Americana and lovely spirituals

Wikipedia Genre: Americana
Home: Austin!

Poster Position: Late Addition
Day: Sunday at 5:30 on the BMI stage
Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts:  Well that was unexpected.  Of all the things you would expect to hear when you go down the rabbithole of the ACL music, what is the last item you think you'll hear?  Well, probably the right answer to that question is classical music or something, but this guy's most recent album is an absolutely gorgeous collection of Christian praise songs called Backslider.  His "Be Thou My Vision" and "It is Well With My Soul" are killer.  But, like, as this guy is potentially singing "Come Thou Fount" on Sunday, Marc Rebillet is going to be two stages over singing about his dick or something.  I swear - this album is so beautiful, it's making me feel emotional.  Outrageously lovely.

That being said, his music overall is not a Jesus-Fest.  His Wikipedia is garbage, all it says is "David Ramirez is an American Americana musician from Austin, Texas.  Ramirez has released six full-length albums. The first two, American Soil (2009) and Apologies (2012), were self-released. Thirty Tigers released his third, Fables, in 2015, fourth, We're Not Going Anywhere in 2017, and fifth album, My Love is a Hurricane in 2020."  That last sentence really went for it on the comma game.

Ramirez was raised in Houston but is now based in Austin.  During the pandemic he did a lot of live streams, raising money for HAAM (which is cool!).  An article I just read makes his parents sound dope - very supportive of his dream to drop out of college and go get it with his music.  They were right - his voice is great.  This is what he should be doing.

His top track is "Harder to Lie," from 2015's Fables.  6.1 million streams.

Obviously not the studio version, but you get the stripped down intimacy of the song.  Stone cold beautiful.  His 202 album is called My Love is a Hurricane, and has his currently most popular track.  "Lover, Will You Lead Me," with just over a million streams.

A little more funk and action than the Christian disc, kind of makes me think of David Grey.  That whole album has a lot more sauce than the spare stuff on Backslider - electronics and bass and the whole deal.  Not so Americana-ey.    "Watching from a Distance" on We're Not Going Anywhere" is another really good song.  Has some Springsteen/Killers vibes.

Yeah, 100% I'd go see him.  Nothing he is up against is all that exciting to me, so maybe I'll drag the girls over for some of this action.