Ray LaMontagne

隨然美國正以無法想象的速度向下沉淪，時常你仍不得不贊嘆這確實是一個筑夢的天堂；也許辛勤努力不見得會帶你到充滿蜜糖的應(yīng)許之地，但小人物奮斗成功的故事確實也每天在這邊上演。 Ray LaMontagne來自一個父母離異的家庭，母親得撫養(yǎng)包括他在內(nèi)的六個小孩。Ray高中畢業(yè)后就進(jìn)入制鞋工廠做粗工，于此之前，他的生命和音樂沒有任何交集。有天他上工前，聽到電臺里傳來Stephen Stills唱著Tree Top Flyer，他呆坐在床上，他知道存在于體內(nèi)的某種東西被喚醒了。那天他沒有去工作，他去唱片行找到了那張唱片，而那個凌晨四點的神奇時分也永遠(yuǎn)改變了他的生命。 他辭去了工作，并開始聽起Neil Young、Bob Dylan、Joni Mitchell這些偉大心靈的歌曲。于是他從一名什么樂器都不會的工廠黑手，在1999年完成了第一張自制Demo，最終被唱片公司看中，并與知名制作人Ethan Johns（Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, the Jayhawks）于兩周內(nèi)錄制完了首張專輯Trouble。這張專輯去年九月就發(fā)行了，由于封面的緣故，我一直以為是什么世界音樂的唱片，媒體也不見大幅報導(dǎo)。直至前陣子，在唱片行試聽后才知道我差點忽略了一個動人的好聲音。 Ray LaMontagne常被拿來和Van Morrison或Tim Buckley相較，但我第一次在試聽機前聽到這張唱片時，讓我直接想起的卻是英國的唱作人David Gray，那種舒服淡雅的urban folk，配上悠揚的提琴與迷人的嗓子，好有氣度的音樂。這類使用大量弦樂的民謠歌曲，自己很喜歡的還有Willard Grant Conspiracy，不過他們的民族味又重了一點。 Ray LaMontagne的音樂格外適合有陽光的午后聆聽，他讓我們找到在喧囂生命里的寧靜片刻。 Ray LaMontagne was born in New Hampshire, but as he put it, his family was "just passing through." His parents split up shortly after his birth, and his mother began a pattern of moving her six children wherever she could find employment and housing, which meant LaMontagne grew up as the perennial new kid in school (when and if he went to school at all). He did graduate high school, however, and found himself working in a shoe factory in Maine when he heard Stephen Stills' "Tree Top Flyer" on the radio. The song amounted to an epiphany for LaMontagne, and he made up his mind on the spot to become a singer and musician. By the summer of 1999 he had put together a ten-song demo tape of his songs, and that demo found its way into the hands of Jamie Ceretta at Chrysalis Music Publishing. The publishing house signed the young songwriter and teamed him with producer Ethan Johns in the studio, resulting in LaMontagne's debut album, Trouble, which was picked up by RCA Records and released in the fall of 2004. With a voice that sounds at times like a huskier, sandpaper version of Van Morrison or Tim Buckley and a tight, emotional writing style, LaMontagne impressed critics with such songs as the title tune, "Trouble," and the cinematic style of pieces like "Narrow Escape." A follow-up album on RCA, Till the Sun Turns Black, appeared in 2006.