Grammy Award winning artist Ray LaMontagne shares new single 'I Wouldn't Change A Thing'
RAY LAMONTAGNE SHARES NEW SINGLE
‘I WOULDN’T CHANGE A THING’
NINTH STUDIO ALBUM LONG WAY HOME
OUT AUGUST 16TH VIA LIULA RECORDS
Ray LaMontagne - the celebrated Grammy award winner - today shares a new single, ‘I Wouldn’t Change A Thing’ - listen/share here. The track, releasing via the highly independent artist’s newly created label Liula Records, is the third taken from LaMontagne’s forthcoming, highly anticipated studio album, Long Way Home, out August 16th - presave/preorder here.
Additionally, last week LaMontagne shared a new video for ‘Long Way Home’, the previous single and the album’s title track - watch here. A somber, bittersweet rumination on times past, the video features visuals from his son Tobias and collage art by his daughter-in-law Bella.
‘I Wouldn’t Change A Thing’ sees LaMontagne reflect on his journey traveled, accepting the downs with the ups. “If I had the chance to turn back time // I could tell you this my friend // I’d do it all over again // I’d get right back in the ring,” he sings. The track’s jangly guitar strums are complimented by the sorrowful wail of a slide guitar and an easy drumbeat.
The first single ‘Step Into Your Power’ released early June and is the fastest moving track of LaMontagne’s in the last ten years. Accompanied by a stop-motion music video animated by his son Tobias, the foot-tapping, nostalgia laden track features choral backing vocals from The Secret Sisters.
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.”
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 seventies, 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.
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.”
Acclaimed folk singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne has released eight studio albums since his 2004 debut, Trouble, which is certified RIAA Platinum. 2006’s Till the Sun Turns Black and 2008’s Gossip in the Grain saw RIAA 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 and the Pariah Dogs. For his debut album, 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. LaMontagne has received a nomination from the Pollstar Concert Industry Awards for Best New Touring Artist, the BRIT Awards for International Breakthrough Act, the MOJO Awards for Best New Act, and was given the title of Best Voice in 2006 by Esquire.
