The project will drop on August 16th
Celebrated Grammy Award-winning Ray LaMontagne has confirmed the next chapter of his career with a new studio album, Long Way Home, out August 16th via the highly independent artist’s newly created label Liula Records. LaMontagne will unveil the lead single, “Step Into Your Power” on June 5th with a video created with his son, Tobias.
In celebration of the forthcoming album, he has announced a new series of solo headlining US tour dates with support from The Secret Sisters, including stops in Austin, New Orleans, and Orlando. Tickets will be available starting with an artist presale beginning Tuesday, June 4th at 10 am local time ahead of the general on-sale beginning Friday, June 7th. The nine new shows, beginning September 17th, will run midway through the previously announced tour with Gregory Alan Isakov.
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 sinceVan 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 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 solo record.
Acclaimed folk singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne has released eight studio albums since his 2004 debut, Trouble, certified by 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 Best Contemporary Folk Album award for God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise. In 2010 he began recording as Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs. LaMontagne won four awards for his debut album, 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.
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
Ray LaMontagne 2024 Tour Dates:
Sept 17 – El Paso, TX @ Abraham Chavez Theatre
Sept 19 – Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater
Sept 20 – Dallas, TX @ Music Hall at Fair Park
Sept 21 – New Orleans, LA @ Orpheum Theatre
Sept 22 – Chattanooga, TN @ Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium
Sept 24 – Birmingham, AL @ Alabama Theatre
Sept 26 – St. Petersburg, FL @ The Mahaffey Theater
Sept 27 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Broward Center for the Performing Arts – Au Rene Theater
Sept 28 – Orlando, FL @ Steinmetz Hall at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
