If you tend to wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, keep a pad or your phone handy to scribble down your next hit single. The honky tonk angels just might be paying you a nocturnal visit.
Ramona Martinez, lead singer and songwriter of Charlottesville-based Ramona & the Holy Smokes, knows to awaken and answer the angelic muses’ call. Her cat even stays ready to keep her from hitting the snooze button.
“I would get a song at 12:30 at night, when I was trying to get to sleep, and I would get up and write it down,” Martinez told The Daily Progress. “I would get, twice a month, really good hooks, melodies and ideas.” Just in case Martinez oversleeps, she said, “my cat wakes me up at 3 o’clock every morning.”
Martinez writes songs about weathering heartbreaks, tapping into the resilience needed to start over again and noticing the handsome stranger driving by; definitely country themes, and definitely a surprise from the angels. Just try getting her bouncy single “Gonna Be Mine” out of your head after your hands have been drumming along on your steering wheel.
“It’s so wild, because I did not grow up listening to country music,” Martinez said with a chuckle. “When I started writing music, it came out as country music. Very basic chords and very straightforward themes.”
Martinez founded the Holy Smokes in 2022 with Kyle Kilduff on electric guitar, Brooks Hefner on pedal steel, Jay Ouypron on bass and Peter Bralley on drums. “When a pedal steel [player] offers to play for you, you don’t say no,” Martinez said. “So that’s where the band started.”
The band’s eponymous debut album, produced by Kilduff and Lord Nelson frontman Kai Crowe-Getty and engineered by Alex De Jong, follows a four-song EP released in 2024. Crowe-Getty and Olivia Ellen Lloyd joined the band for an album release show to celebrate Ramona & the Holy Smokes Saturday at the Southern Café and Music Hall.
A second release show is set for 8 p.m. this coming Friday at Richmond’s Get Tight Lounge, where support will come from the Wayward Leaves and Dogwood Brothers.
Martinez said fans can expect to see new coordinating outfits and hear two brand-new songs.
The band’s been-together-forever sound is nourished by a mixture of country and Western styes from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In addition to its toe-tapping honky tonk, the Holy Smokes play a fresh mix the band calls “Mexi-tonk.”
“Mexi-tonk is not really a thing yet,” Martinez said, joking that the genre in development is “trying to make a baby between honky tonk and Mexican music.”
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Wide Open Country has recognized Martinez as one of its “15 Latino Artists Shaping Country Music,” and a Spanish-language track on the debut album, “Esta Herida,” is a taste of things to come.
Martinez hopes to sing two or three songs in Spanish on a future album. For a musician with Texas ties and Latino heritage who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish at home, “I feel really proud to be a connection between two cultures,” she said. And just as she’s proud of the influence of Virginia’s own Patsy Cline — “she was so honky tonk; she grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry,” Martinez said — she loves helping listeners discover the Latino roots of the country music they love.
“The original cowboy was the vaquero from Mexico,” Martinez said. “I think that’s so important for people to find out. It’s not just music from Texas and California, even though those are the epicenters.”
Newcomers to the Holy Smokes’ honky tonk style have a treat in store. It’s a reminder that even if the country music you’ve heard to date has not resonated with you yet, the angels won’t steer you wrong.
Audience members often tell Martinez that “I didn’t know I liked country music until I heard you guys,” she said.
“I think that people might put it on expecting a novelty record” and then feel right at home, Martinez said of the eponymous debut album. “We’re honky tonk compared to mainstream country. A lot of people say they don’t like country, because they don’t like what they hear on the radio.”
Getting country music right, to Martinez, is a matter of “sincerity.” For listeners everywhere who’ve ever found themselves “feeling stuck and dreaming of something better,” country music offers a warm welcome home; a pair of boots and a barstool are waiting for you.
And don’t give up on country radio, either; the artists aiming straight for your heart are out there. “There are people making country music who are true to the spirit of it,” Martinez said.
“We’re not commercial; we’re homegrown,” Martinez said of the band. “It’s about the human experience. Ways to escape your circumstances. Daring to choose something else.”
The Holy Smokes inhabit a sweet spot between the time-honored sounds of the past and a decidedly 2025 feel. Martinez draws inspiration from “people like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells,” she said. “I’m able to write from a woman’s perspective because they’ve paved the way.”
That’s not to say she writes only for women; plenty of men have told Martinez that her songs spoke to their experiences as well.
The debut album is the first for Martinez and the Holy Smokes, but the musical road stretches far into the future — as fast as her honky tonk angels can fly.
“I feel it’s my duty to take this as far as it can go. I want people to be able to hear the music,” Martinez said. “To change hearts and minds.”
Sessions, presented by the Wayne Theatre, is a monthly feature that profiles artists of all concentrations across Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. Have an artist that you think should sit down for a session? Email your nomination to Daily Progress features editor Jane Sathe at jsathe@dailyprogress.com.
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