Ray of night
The cult of LaMontagne, slightly revealed
By Seth Combs , Will K. Shilling
By now, you may be familiar with Ray LaMontagne, or even privy to the mythology that’s been built up around his career and his soulful, folk-infused music. If not, here it goes: Almost a high-school dropout and struggling to pay the rent working in a rustic New England shoe factory, one day LaMontagne hears Stephen Stills’ “Tree Top Flyer” on his clock radio and has a musical epiphany. He starts writing his own songs while teaching himself to play guitar and sing. After signing to a major label, he swiftly builds a grassroots following that leads to packed theater shows around the country and hundreds of thousands of copies of his debut record sold. All this without the support of a major radio hit or the usual press blitz.
Most elements of the myth are true, judging by the few interviews LaMontagne has done since releasing Trouble for RCA in 2004. Even though he favors playing his live shows in the dark and prefers to hole up in his Lewiston, Maine, home, the details of his behavior and past get fuzzier and less interesting with passing time. But what hasn’t become less interesting, thankfully, is the music he’s making.
In 2006, he followed up the earthy, almost low-fi soul of Trouble with the expansive, studio-filling, Till the Sun Turns Black. Adding horns and strings to his compositions, the record impressed some critics, many of whom had already been wondering aloud whether LaMontagne was a post-pop anomaly in the new millennium: A no-hit wonder whose success was owed more to the major-label marketing of his myth, rather than the fan-driven troubadour at the heart of the music.
Talking about this with CityBeat by phone from the Boulder, Colo., stop on his current tour, which included a sold-out show at Spreckels Theatre last Saturday, the soft-spoken LaMontagne says his latest effort, Gossip in the Grain (which was released Oct. 14 and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts), is another example of the progression, or perhaps regression, of his sound.
“Each batch of songs is different, you know?” he says. “With Till the Sun Turns Black, I was really trying to do something there: create something that was very whole. But with this record, it was really just looking at the batch of songs and sort of looking at each song individually.”
For the recording, he traveled to England to work with longtime producer Ethan Johns, but it may as well have been Nashville or Muscle Shoals. The whole thing plays out like a combination of his two previous releases, but with a more rootsy, but no less bombastic, sound on tracks like “Let it Be Me” and “You are the Best Thing.” It’s more Dusty in Memphis than Dylan at Royal Albert Hall. Having a group of musicians he’s been playing with for several years also played a big part in pushing the eclecticism of each tune on Gossip.
“There are some ideas, but there’s always surprises, as well, once you get in the studio. And everyone starts bouncing ideas off each other and it sort of takes on a life of its own.” The sound, LaMontagne says, “sort of evolved over the last couple of years. We kind of found something that we like.”
Never once accused of an overly rosy view of life in his lyrics, LaMontagne says it’s fair to characterize the new songs as more optimistic than his past records but that it’s more a result of the arrangements than the sentiments expressed.
“Some of the songs are, I don’t know, it’s kind of loose but not really loose,” he says. “When we were there doing it, and when we were finished, it seemed like it was kind of surprising. Like you didn’t quite know what was coming next, and I like that aspect of it. And it felt like an easier listen then Till the Sun Turns Black.”
On the subject of loosening up, the topic turns to LaMontagne’s song “Meg White,” about the infamously rudimentary and stoic drummer of The White Stripes. The music press has latched onto the song, with its whistled Western-movie intro and lyrical pining, as an example of LaMontagne becoming more playful with his subject matter. Coming from an infamously stoic interview subject, one can’t help but wonder if the two share more than press-shyness.
“No, I’ve never met Meg,” LaMontagne deadpans. “The song really just sort of got stuck in my head. You know, just like any other song, it just popped in.”
“I don’t know. I’m just a fan of their music,” he continues after a long pause. “I love The White Stripes. When I get down, and I’m bogged down in the business end of things and thinking about everything but music, I can always put on a White Stripes record and it just sort of reminds you of what it’s all about. You know, it’s just about music; it’s just about expressing yourself and having fun.”
At that, LaMontagne chuckles softly, as if recognizing the irony in that thought as it relates to his stylings. Or, perhaps, he’s caught himself betraying the perception that’s been built up about him.
Then he adds: “Although having fun is a bit of a stretch.”
Published: 11/04/2008
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