According to NO DEPRESSION, "David Ullman sings with a passion and clarity that belies his relative rookie status." His latest album, LIGHT THE DARK, is hailed by the same authority on roots music as "both striking and sincere. Every track reflects the strength of an artist possessed, one benefitting from both confidence and craft. There’s nothing halfway or compromising about what Ullman does; he puts his all into every offering and the results bear that out, even on first hearing."
A moody mix of haunted hymns, blasphemous ballads, and folk-rock redemption songs, LIGHT THE DARK was released on Ullman's own label, Dreaming Out Loud Records. Originally from Northeast Ohio, Ullman’s emotionally intelligent and unabashedly candid debut, DOG DAYS (2008), was deemed “exquisitely beautiful” and “intensely rich” by Cleveland music critics. The region’s concertgoers were introduced to Ullman over the course of the more than 300 shows he played in support of the album, as well as its singles/EPs “Deja Vu” (2007) and “Secondhand” (2009) and the live “Green Bootleg” UNPLUGGED @ UNCORKED (2010).
Building a devoted fan base one passionate, furrow-browed performance at a time, the now 33-year-old Ullman began playing clubs, coffeehouses and bars in and around Kent, Ohio in 2005 while finishing college and working twelve-hour-nights in a plastics factory. He’s since left both factory and college life behind, relocating to Northfield, Minnesota and taking his tattered green Doc Martens and his bloodied, battered Martin guitar on the road. “One of the benefits of beginning your music career in a college town is that, after they graduate, the students who’ve made up your audience either return to where they’re from or move someplace new,” Ullman says. “I’m fortunate to have supporters in some pretty cool places.”
Regardless of the setting, whether it’s opening for acts like Need To Breathe, Chelsea Crowell, Iris DeMent, Hamell On Trial, or Rusted Root on theater and club stages; returning to his old stomping grounds to play in the Kent State Folk Festival; headlining his own annual gig in Ohio at Akron’s Musica; or a private house concert, Ullman’s most valuable asset is his ability to relate to an audience. Listeners easily identify with the extreme highs, the obliterating lows and the hazy in-betweens reflected in his songs. Slightly gravelly vocals, which crescendo from the barest whisper to a barely-controlled roar, lend Ullman’s earnest and raw confessions a grace and sincerity rarely found in today’s music. “For me,” he says, “even though I might sing about intense, sad-sounding subjects, the goal is always to transcend the darkness by giving voice to it. It’s catharsis. I don’t usually sing songs when I’m happy. I guess you could say I sing sad songs to get happy.”
