THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ray LaMontagne — the celebrated Grammy-winning singer-songwriter — has opened the next chapter of his storied career with his Long Way Home.
LaMontagne has spent the past two decades carving a singular space for himself in modern music. In a career that has seen overflowing critical acclaim, he’s opted out of the spotlight and its accompanying celebrity in the remote hills of Western Massachusetts. His signature voice continues to serve as a conduit for era-defining melodies and songwriting. Across eight studio albums, LaMontagne has let his songs and story speak for themselves, ringing a deep chord in the American subconscious. As has come to be expected through his extensive and awarded discography, LaMontagne delivers yet again on record nine with a cohesive, impressive effort.
The core of Long Way Home reverberates deep into LaMontagne’s youth — at 21 years old, in a small club in Minneapolis, he recalls seeing Townes Van Zandt perform live. A line from To Live Is To Fly has stuck with him ever since; Van Zandt sang, “When here you been is good an gone, all you keep is the getting there.” LaMontagne reflects, “Thirty years later it occurs to me that every song on Long Way Home is in one way or another honoring the journey. The languorous days of youth and innocence. The countless battles of adulthood, some won, more often lost. It’s been a long hard road, and I wouldn’t change a minute. It took me nine songs to express what Townes managed to say in one line. I guess I still got a lot to learn.”
Produced in tandem with Seth Kauffman (Floating Action, Angel Olsen, Lana Del Ray), Long Way Home’s nine moving tracks recall the folk-rock explosion of the early ’70ss, while aptly sitting among the modern Americana revival that LaMontagne was integral in fueling. Recorded over the course of a few weeks in his home studio, LaMontagne tapped both long-time and new collaborators across the record — The Secret Sisters provide backing vocals on the first three tracks, while the album was engineered and mixed by the team of LaMontagne, Kauffman and Ariel Bernstein. The album artwork furthers that LaMontagne is cracking the window open to his audience: The piece, a woodblock print by artist Barbara S. Beck, hangs above the desk where he’s written most of his albums.
Long Way Home is LaMontagne’s first full-length effort since 2020’s Monovision, a stripped-back solo-recording. His 2004 debut Trouble is certified platinum, while 2006’s Till the Sun Turns Black and 2008’s Gossip In The Grain earned gold certifications. LaMontagne received two Grammy nominations and won the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album for God Willin’ And The Creek Don’t Rise. In 2010 he began recording as Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs. For Trouble, LaMontagne won four awards, including three Boston Music Awards (Best Male Singer/Songwriter, Album of the Year and Song of the Year) and an XM Nation Music Award for Acoustic Rock Artist of the Year. He has also received a nomination from the Pollstar Concert Industry Awards for Best New Touring Artist, a BRIT Award for International Breakthrough Act, a MOJO Award for Best New Act, and was given the title of Best Voice in 2006 by Esquire.”
