Ray Lamontagne

Ray LaMontagne (pronunced "la-mon-TAYN") (born June 18. 1973) is an award-winning folk singer-songwriter from Nashua, New Hampshire. He currently lives on a 103-acre farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts with his wife, Sarah Sousa, and their two children in the farmhouse built in 1830. His parents split up shortly after his birth, and his mother began a pattern of moving her six children to any locale that could offer her employment and housing. As a result, LaMontagne grew up as the perennial new kid in school (when he went to school at all). He did graduate high school, however, and found himself working in a shoe factory in Maine when one morning, he heard the Stephen Stills song Treetop Flyer on the radio as it awoke him at 4am for an early work shift. After purchasing the acoustic Stills Alone album (1991), LaMontagne decided to quit his job and begin a musical career. He has since released two albums, Trouble and Till The Sun Turns Black. Bootleg copies of his early demo albums Raycharles LaMontagne (1999), Acre of Land (2001), Green (2002), One Lonesome Saddle (2002) and Introducing Ray Lamontagne (2003) are also now in circulation. In the UK, Trouble was a top 5 hit, and the single of the title track was a top 25 hit. Till the Sun Turns Black was a top 40 hit in the US. He has also recorded two popular B-Side covers of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy and his original song, Jolene, which can be heard in the closing credits of the 2010 movie The Town. Musically, Ray plays guitar, harmonica and piano, but he is particularly known for his raspy voice, which has been said to "combine the soul of Ray Charles and the grit of Otis Redding". Whilst LaMontagne says he is highly influenced by Stephen Stills, critics have compared LaMontagne's music to that of Van Morrison, Nick Drake, and Tim Buckley. LaMontagne is a soft-spoken, notoriously private person who shuns the media spot-light, rarely giving interviews. He rarely interacts with the audience during his live shows and has even been known to perform live shows in the dark in order to separate himself from the audience.