Burr Biography2002

Your inspiring speech gave us all something to think about,...."
-- Theresa Filberth, President, LULAC Council 673

RAMIRO BURR

Ramiro Burr is a syndicated columnist, A&E reporter and award-winning blogger. He is also an author, a Billboard correspondent and a free-lance music writer published by Pulse, Rhythm Music, Songlines, Cashbox, Latina, Performance and New Country Music magazines, as well as the Houston Chronicle and Austin Chronicle newspapers. His CD reviews have also appeared at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and Billboard.com and his picks have been part of the Village Voice's prestigious 2001 and 2002 Pazz & Jop critics list and Billboard's annual yearend 2001 and 2002 Critic’s Choice issues.

In March 2008, Ramiro Burr received a Philip True Award from the San Antonio Express-News for "Online Impact." Burr's popular Latin Notes Now Blogs received 750,000 hits in 2007, more than any other Express-News/Mysa.com blog including the SA Spurs, Dallas Cowboys, traffic and weather blogs.In April 2008, the LNN blog scored No.1 again with a record 191,000-plus hits- twice over the next blog. Mysa.com is San Antonio's largest Web site, today registering over one million hits a month.

Burr's 1999 book, The Billboard Guide to Tejano and regional Mexican Music, by New York publisher BillboardBooks, is the genre's first-ever sourcebook. Burr also contributed chapters to World Music, by the London-based Rough Guides, Hispanic Almanac, on Visible Ink Press and Puro Conjunto on UT Press.

Since 1986, Burr has specialized in Spanish-language music, a growing field rarely covered by the mainstream press. Burr's weekly syndicated Express-News music column, has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Austin-American Statesman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Angelo Standard-Times, Albuquerque Tribune, and the Laredo Morning Times.

A nationally recognized music authority, Burr is a regular panelist at major conferences presented by Grammy in the Streets, South by Southwest, Smithsonian Institute, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and industry trade groups. Burr is also an articulate and critical analyst quoted often by American national publications and network news shows including the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR's Talk of the Nation, ABC News Radio, ABC's Primetime Live and PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer and international press such as the BBC's World Service, Mexico's Notimex and Spain's EFE wire service.

Through his career Burr has interviewed hundreds of top artists including U2's the Edge, Robert Plant, Shakira, Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, the Eagle's Don Henley, Phil Collins, matchbox twenty's Mark Doucette, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Yes' Jon Anderson, Carlos Santana, KISS's Gene Simmons, Ted Nugent, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Clint Black, George Strait, Joan Jett, Mark Farner, Juan Gabriel, Jose Jose, and others.

Through his experience, Burr has become a professional speaker whose insight and analysis of music, journalism, culture and the arts has been sought by colleges and civic groups such as the University of Texas, the University of Houston, Texas A&M, DePaul, California State, Southwest Texas State, St. Mary's, Trinity and Rice universities and LULAC. In 2001 and 2002, the Hearst/Express-News volunteer corp. named Burr the "Speaker of the Year." His provocative talks cover the urgency of literacy, the importance of the arts, the purpose of music, the politics of modern journalism and the decay of American pop culture. His intriguing insider's view offers incisive, sometimes hard-hitting, but always amusing perspectives that challenge universal truths with philosophical questions.

His reputation as a no-nonsense, straight-shooting reporter has won both friends and critics. In 1993, the tough alternative weekly San Antonio Current named him "Best Music Reporter." Burr has also written for the Associated Press, United Press International and Hispanic Link, Mexico City's El Nacional and La Jornada and Los Angeles' La Opinion and Novedades.

A native of Laredo, Texas, Burr received a bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Before working at the San Antonio Express-News from 1983-2008, Burr worked for the San Antonio Light and the Laredo Morning Times.

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Recent press and appearances

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