Ray Bonneville
Bluesy New Orleans
Bonneville has been called "a poet of the demimonde" who didn't write his first song until his early 40s, some 20 years after he started performing. But with a style that sometimes draws comparisons to JJ Cale and Daniel Lanois, this blues-influenced, New Orleans-inspired "song and groove man," as he's been so aptly described, luckily found his rightful calling.
Born in Quebec, his family moved to Boston when he was 12. He served a year in Vietnam as a Marine, struggled and overcame drug addiction, earned a pilot's license in Colorado, then moved to Alaska, then Seattle, Paris, and New Orleans. But it took a close call while piloting a seaplane across the Canadian wilderness to make him decide it was time to get busy writing songs - gritty narratives inspired by a lifetime of hard-won knowledge set against his gritty, soulful guitar and harmonica playing and accented by stirring foot percussion. His home is now Austin TX, and he regularly tours the US, Canada, and Europe.
Bonneville has earned many accolades, including a Juno Award for his 1999 album, Gust of Wind. His post-Katrina ode, "I Am the Big Easy," earned the International Folk Alliance's 2009 Song of the Year Award, and in 2012, Bonneville won the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge. He has guested on albums by Mary Gauthier, Gurf Morlix, Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard and other prominent artists, and shared songwriting credits with Tim O'Brien, Phil Roy and Morlix, among others. Slaid Cleaves placed Bonneville's "Run Jolee Run" on his lauded 2009 album, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away.
- Website:
- http://raybonneville.com/
- Video:
- https://youtu.be/MAggfw5q_s0