Ray LaMontagne—the celebrated Grammy award winning singer-songwriter—today unveils a new single, “Long Way Home”—listen/share here. The track, releasing via the highly independent artist’s newly created label Liula Records, is the second taken from LaMontagne’s forthcoming, highly anticipated studio album, Long Way Home, out August 16—presave/preorder here.
“Long Way Home”, the album’s title track, is a somber, bittersweet rumination on times past. LaMontagne sings, “Summertime, summertime / Said goodbye at the garden wall / From the house I can hear my momma callin' / Winter come to us all my friend / Just as every childhood has an end,” as flashes of warm memories float by.
The previous single, “Step Into Your Power”, released early this month and is the fastest moving track of LaMontagne’s in the last ten years—this week saw a 15 position rise at radio to #13 at Mediabase Triple A. 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 and was praised by Atwood as “a gosh darned groove […] easygoing and uplifting, yet smooth and relaxing.”
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.”
LaMontagne has announced a new series of solo headlining U.S. tour dates with support from The Secret Sisters, including stops in Austin, New Orleans and Orlando. Tickets are on sale now—see below for dates, full show details can be found here. The 9 new shows, beginning September 17, will run midway through the previously announced tour with Gregory Alan Isakov.
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. The New York Times accounts, “Visiting Ray LaMontagne is like going back to another century.” His distinctive voice, described by Rolling Stone as an “impeccably weathered tenor croon”, 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.
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.
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 LaMontagne’s 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 heralded by American Songwriter as “soothing, but never clichéd warmth in retro-style.”
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.
TRACK LIST
LONG WAY HOME
1. Step Into Your Power
2. I Wouldn’t Change A Thing
3. Yearning
4. And They Called Her California
5. La De Dum, La De Da
6. My Lady Fair
7. The Way Things Are
8. So, Damned, Blue
9. Long Way Home
SOLO HEADLINE TOUR DATES
September 17—El Paso, TX—Abraham Chavez Theatre
September 19—Austin, TX—ACL Live at the Moody Theater
September 20—Dallas, TX—Music Hall at Fair Park
September 21—New Orleans, LA—Orpheum Theatre
September 22—Chattanooga, TN—Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium
September 24—Birmingham, AL—Alabama Theatre
September 26—St. Petersburg, FL—The Mahaffey Theater
September 27—Fort Lauderdale, FL—Broward Center for the
Performing Arts - Au Rene Theater
September 28—Orlando, FL—Steinmetz Hall at Dr. Phillips Center
for the Performing Arts
TOUR DATES WITH GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV
September 4—Missoula, MT—KettleHouse Amphitheater
September 6—Seattle, WA—Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Amphitheatre
September 7—Seattle, WA—Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Amphitheatre
September 8—Bend, OR—Hayden Homes Amphitheatre
September 10—Jacksonville, OR—Britt Pavilion
September 11—Berkeley, CA—Greek Theatre*
September 12—Los Angeles, CA—YouTube Theater
September 14—San Diego, CA— Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
September 15—Phoenix, AZ—Arizona Federal Theatre
October 1—Charleston, SC—Firefly Distillery
October 2—Asheville, NC—ExlporeAsheville.com Arena
October 4—Cincinnati, OH—Andrew J Brady Center
October 5—Indianapolis, IN—Everwise Amphitheater
October 6—Franklin, TN—FirstBank Amphitheater
October 8—Baltimore, MD—Pier Six Pavilion
October 9—Charlottesville, VA—Ting Pavilion
October 11—Atlanta, GA—Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park
October 12—Charlotte, NC—Skyla Credit Union Amphitheater
October 13—Raleigh, NC—Red Hat Amphitheater
