Ramona & The Holy Smokes

Based in Central Virginia and with family roots in South Texas, Ramona and the Holy Smokes represent a new generation of honky tonk music. With powerful female vocals that cover an emotional range from determined to comic to vulnerable, and a talented backing band steeped in classic country and western styles of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the band exhibits a “clarity and sincerity that bring Patsy Cline to mind” (Nashville Scene, 2025). Fronted by Ramona Martinez, whose songwriting has earned her recognition from Wide Open Country as one of the "15 Latino Artists Shaping Country Music," this Charlottesville, Virginia-based band is rooted in the traditional sounds of country music but unafraid of pushing boundaries and highlighting the connections across border cultures. They have appeared at several Americana festivals including Red Wing Roots (2024), Rooster Walk (2025), and Bristol Rhythm & Roots (2025), and has opened for touring artists like Margo Cilker, Colby Acuff, Willi Carlisle, Redd Volkaert, Joshua Hedley, Donna the Buffalo, and Kashus Culpepper. Their self-produced debut album, Ramona and the Holy Smokes, a collection of original songs about heartache and resiliency, will be released on September 26. 

Growing up and making a life in Nelson County, Virginia, Kai Crowe-Getty has carved out a career writing about the people and landscapes around him. His first show was in middle school and there were polyester shirts, strobe lights, and dancing. He's been playing music since. When not fronting the rock act Lord Nelson, Kai has supported artists such as BJ Barham (American Aquarium), Joe Pug, Chuck Regan, Andrew Combs, Erin Rea and many others. His debut solo record, The Wreckage, was released on June 27, 2025. 

From flight attendant school in Dallas to producing theater in New York and teaching in Guatemala, Olivia Ellen Lloyd sought adventure but struggled to find a greater sense of purpose - until she found her way back to music. Channeling that restless spirit, she writes songs that dig deep for hope in the face of hardship. Her debut album, Loose Cannon, has been streamed over 1 million times while she has been crossing the country playing shows, winning songwriting contests (like Kerrville in 2023) and generally eating life down to the rind. She also works as an in-demand side woman, singing backing vocals for the likes of Lizzie No, Emily Scott Robinson, and Renee Rapp during her 2024 performance at the All Things Go Festival in Forest Hills, Queens.

Lloyd has spent the past three years doubling down on her efforts to build community within the Alt-Country and Americana scene while deepening  her working partnership with Mike Robinson, an in-demand sideman known for touring and recording with the likes of Sarah Jarosz, Railroad Earth, Teddy Thompson, Iris Dement, Lindsay Lou, Bella White, Zach Bryan, Jobi Riccio and Ryan Beatty.  Mike served as her producer and primary instrumentalist on this project.

Together they crafted an album that refuses to be placed in a narrow genre definition, focusing instead on building songs that paint a picture of liberation from oppressive patriarchal and paternalistic forces.

She is also a newly inaugurated member of the Resistance Revival Chorus,  a collective of more than 60 women, and non-binary singers, who join together to breathe joy and song into the resistance, and to uplift and center women’s voices.