Award-winning singer/songwriter Ray Bonneville’s new CD, At King Electric, features all-original songs, and one,”Next Card to Fall,” proves a good example of Bonneville’s compelling lyrics which mix grit and deep feeling, hope and despair.

Writing isn’t always a “sit down and get it done” exercise, and this cut is a good example. Bonneville told Elmore, “I had another version of this song cooking for my last album, Easy Gone. It had a different groove and only a few of the lyrics that are in this version. In this one, fate plays its hand in the lives of four different characters; ones that I suspect a lot of people know or have come across in some way in their own lives, though who might go by different names. I recorded that other version, but after living with it for a while I realized that I didn’t quite believe some the stuff I had written into it, so it didn’t make it onto the album. One of the most often asked questions, by myself or by my accomplice/engineer Justin Douglas, is ‘do you believe it?’ If we both do, there’s a good chance it will stay, if not it either gets fixed or gets shown the door.”

At King Electric was recorded in Austin, Texas and produced by Bonneville and Douglas. Bonneville strips his bluesy Americana down to its essentials and steeps it in a humid, Southern vibe, creating a compelling poetry of hard living and deep feeling.

“Song and groove man,” Ray Bonneville has lived the life of the itinerant artist and raconteur. A native French-speaking Quebecois, he moved to Boston at age 12 where he learned English and picked up piano and guitar. He served in Vietnam and earned a commercial pilot’s license in Colorado before living in Alaska, Seattle, and Paris. Six years in New Orleans infused his musical sensibilities with the region’s culture, and he finally made music his full-time job. Lucky for all of us.

Learn more about Ray Bonneville  HERE

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