Ray LaMontagne.
I think I’ve blogged about this before. But there’s a great excerpt in The Talent Code by Daniel Coyne about how Ray LaMontagne became the musician he is today. Here it is:
Another example is Ray LaMontagne, a shoe-factory worker from Lewiston, Maine, who at age twenty-two had an epiphany that he should become a singer-songwriter. LaMontagne had little musical experience and less money, so he took a simple approach to learning: he bought dozens of used albums by Stephen Stills, Otis Redding, Al Green, Etta James, and Ray Charles, and holed up in his apartment. For two years. Every day he spent hours training himself by singing along to the records. LaMontagne’s friends assumed he had left town; his neighbors assumed he was either insane or had locked himself inside a musical time capsule—which, in a sense, he had. “I would sing and sing, and hurt and hurt, because I knew I wasn’t doing it right,” LaMontagne said. “It took a long time, but I finally learned to sing from the gut.” Eight years after he started, LaMontagne’s first album sold nearly half a million copies. The main reason was his soulful voice, which Rolling Stone said sounded like church, and which other listeners mistook for that of Otis Redding and Al Green. LaMontagne’s voice was a gift, it was agreed. But the real gift, perhaps, was the practice strategy he used to build that voice.
Not only am I huge fan of the singers he emulates (yes, I spend weekends listening to Bill Withers, Al Green and Otis Redding) but I also love the fact he is self trained. The amount of tenacity it took him to practice for two years, getting his vocals perfect, and performing in front of the few who rolled into a must bar is truly outstanding.
I look at LaMontagne as a role model of who I can become. At age twenty two he had the presence to change his path and become a world famous artist. If I can put two solid years of practice, and another eight years of hard work, I know the results will follow.
Ray LaMontagne is my favorite artist because he gives me hope I can become what he has become. Maybe it’s the Maine connection (I was born and raised in Maine) or maybe it’s the gritty voice that draws me to him but at the end of the day, listening to LaMontagne always leaves me believing I can become the person I want to become.