Premiere: Ray Bonneville, Waiting on the Night

At King Electric

Ray Bonneville’s ninth release, At King Electric, delivers more than his trademark grit and groove. Rich guitar and harmonica lines and sassy rhythms support Bonneville’s evocative voice as he acknowledges life’s harsh realities.

Often called a “song and groove man,” Bonneville’s itinerant lifestyle began in his native Quebec, and from there to Boston, Vietnam, Colorado, Seattle, Paris, six years in New Orleans, the Canadian bush and Austin. Along with an enthusiastic following in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Bonneville has picked up the prestigious Juno Award (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy), a win in the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge, and his post-Katrina ode, “I Am the Big Easy,” earned the International Folk Alliance’s 2009 Song of the Year Award and placed number one on Folk Radio’s list of most-played songs of 2008.

None of this comes easy, but Bonneville keeps going. He told Elmore, “I had been trying to write this song for a while. It had not made it onto my last record Easy Gone because I didn’t believe what I had originally written. I took the song apart, and looking at the pieces lying around I saw that it just wanted to say a simple thing; that for some people the night time is when they feel the most calm, the most alright. For them, and as for me, the blanket of low light has a soothing effect. It’s a time for making friends with this imperfect world, a time to look back, reflect and forgive…

“When we tracked this song it was Richie Lawrence (keys), Andre Bohren (drums), and myself on guitar and singing in a big room, with Justin Douglas at the knobs. I wanted a lot of space in the music for the listener’s imagination. Andre and Richie floated around my thumb’s base line and brushing index to catch a sparse vibe that we all liked, and that is the track.

“This clip, shot and finessed on a lower-than-low budget by friend Cisco Gilkyson, portrays one of the many ways the song could be visually interpreted.”