There’s a faction of music fans out there who are annoyed by Ray LaMontagne, and it’s not too difficult to understand why. Here’s a guy who refuses to behave like a pop star, or even a traditional frontman, after taking 50 bucks of your money. Onstage, he occupies one edge of his band’s semicircular setup and rarely moves from his spot, meaning that patrons on the right side of the auditorium may never see his face in full. There’s no spotlight on him, no between-song communication with the audience, and LaMontagne seems so shy … not so much shy, actually, but occasionally uncertain of his surroundings and his place within them … that a listener can be forgiven for wondering if one more obnoxious “whoop” or song request from the audience will spur poor Ray to pack up his guitar and go back to that shoe factory in Maine, never to be heard from again.

Yes, it’s easy to understand why an uninitiated listener might find LaMontagne’s stage presence irritating – until he opens his mouth to sing. That voice! So clearly a product of its influences, and yet such a primal, naturalistic instrument that one imagines it was bestowed upon him in some sort of wee-hours crossroads deal, as though the devil still had one more trade up his sleeve after draining the usefulness from Robert Johnson’s soul.

Of course, we know the devil couldn’t have been involved in this particular deal, because if there’s one thing LaMontagne’s singing projects in spades, it’s soul. Whether he was performing the countrified tunes off his new Gossip in the Grain album, or channeling Memphis R&B on the already-classic “Three More Days,” the emotional resonance in LaMontagne’s rasping voice kept the pre-Halloween audience at L.A.’s Wiltern Theatre riveted. I’ve honestly never witnessed so many fellow concertgoers leaning forward in their seats, pulled from positions of greater comfort by an instinctive need to get a little bit closer to the source of that sound.

Well, maybe that’s an overreaction to the fact that his vocals were mic’ed just barely above his accompaniment, and some of those patrons (this wasn’t the youngest crowd the Wiltern has ever hosted) probably were straining just to hear them. Nevertheless, there’s much to be said for a person of such immense talent who insists upon immersing himself in his band’s groove, rather than dominating it. And LaMontagne, whose L.A. gig came near the end of a six-week nationwide trek, clearly has found his comfort zone (and his preferred decibel level) within the confines of his rhythm section (Jennifer Condos on bass, producer Ethan Johns on drums), keyboardist Chris Joiner, and particularly within the open and elastic sounds of guitarist and pedal-steel virtuoso Eric Heywood. (more…)