Ray Bonneville - Bad Man’s Blood

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Listening to Bad Man’s Blood, I am reminded of the music of John Lee Hooker. Hooker would set up a groove with just a few notes, and he would stay on those notes for the entire song. The effect was haunting, like an incantation. It was a technique that only worked for Hooker, I thought, but its power was undeniable. Ray Bonneville has a somewhat richer musical vocabulary here, but he achieves some of the same kind of effect. Bonneville casts a spell, and he holds you for the length of the album.

The songs on Bad Man’s Blood are mid-tempo stomps, and stomps is an apt term. Bonneville plays either acoustic or electric guitar on every song, sometimes both. To this he adds what the liner notes call “foot percussion”; basically, this seems to mean that he stamps his foot in time to the music. Mike Meadows is the drummer on some tracks, but this is not drumming as you usually hear it. Meadows is playing a “Black Swan”, which is a tunable hand drum with changeable heads, so you can get a wide variety of sounds from it; here, Meadows is just playing a steady pulse, like a heartbeat. Gurf Morlix plays electric guitar, baritone guitar, bass, and banjo in various places. His role is to thicken the sound and add texture. Also adding to the texture on two songs is Dexter Payne on saxes. And here and there, Bonneville adds smudges of sound on harmonica. These smudges are sort of accidental chords, and their purpose is not melodic at all. They sound like something from another planet, but they make musical sense in context. In sum, the tempos don’t change much on this album, but Bonneville and his crew vary the textures enough to make this a fascinating listen. Bonneville sings in a weathered bluesy baritone. Bonneville knows his limits vocally, but he can imbue the title song with a sense of foreboding, while the affection in Blond of Mine, the sly humor of Funny ‘Bout Love, and the yearning in Darlin’ (Put You Suitcase Down) all come through loud and clear.

There is also a nice variety of themes in the lyrics. Of course, there are love songs. Darlin’ (Put Your Suitcase Down) is what it sounds like, a song about a break up. But Bonneville leaves open the possibility that the Darlin’ in the song might finally decide to stay. Funny ‘Bout Love is about the feelings of a man and a woman who meet years after they stopped being a couple. And Sugar and Riley relates the tale of a lovers quarrel overheard through a wall; Bonneville hastens to assure us in the first chorus that everything was ok again by morning. Other songs are more mysterious. River John sounds like a fond remembrance of a friend who has passed on. Night Walker is a speculation about a stranger who is observed walking around outside night after night; Bonneville’s narrator regards him with intense curiosity, but does not see him at all as a threat. In all of these songs, there is a sense of hope, and abundant sympathy. Bonneville sees the world as full of good people who sometimes get in bad situations.

So, where John Lee Hooker portrayed men in hopeless positions, overcome by their fate, Bonneville uses the same kind of insistent music not to despair but to urge perseverance. Bad Man’s Blood casts a spell, but the darkness never takes over. This album is insistent, but hopeful in hard times. Bonneville’s voice has a smile in it, especially later in the album. I’m sharing that smile right now.

Ray Bonneville: Sugar and Riley

Ray Bonneville: Night Walker

Ray Bonneville - Goin’ By Feel

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Goin’ By Feel is a good name for this album. The playing, the arrangements, and the songwriting are all about feel, in different ways.

Ray Bonneville has a great feel for a groove. He plays his guitar with some light reverb, but otherwise with minimal effects, and his style is percussive. The drums and bass that appear on most tracks provide accents, and enhance the groove. but the guitar is mixed front and center. This is not dance music, however. This groove is a heartbeat, a pulse that provides motion.

Bonneville’s voice is a baritone with some grit. There is dust gently blowing down a country track in this voice, or spatters of light rain falling on a cheek. Like his guitar playing, Bonneville’s voice does not batter you with emotion; the effect is subtle. The emotions are carried by the words, and occasionally enhanced by Bonneville’s harmonica.

About those words; on first listen to them, I found this album very frustrating. Each song would start a story, but never finish it. I wanted to know what happened next. What Katy Did was especially aggravating; we never do find out what Katy did, but there are tantalizing clues.

But then I began to realize what Bonneville was up to. What Katy Did is not about Katy; it’s about a man who learned her secret, promised not to tell it, and is finding his promise hard to keep. The song is not a story at all; it’s about a character’s state of mind at a particular moment in time. And that is what this album is, a collection of moments. So Carry the Fallen describes a woman’s feelings on seeing the flag draped coffins returning from the war, and knowing that this is a sight her government didn’t mean for her to see. Sabine River describes a chance meeting between a man and woman traveling to New Orleans, at that moment when the meeting of two people is fraught with fears and full of possibilities. Cemetery Road describes the feelings of a woman as she walks by the cemetery where a loved one is buried; the nature of the relationship and the cause of death are never completely clear. Most unusually, I Am The Big Easy finds the city of New Orleans personified, contemplating its sense of identity in light of recent events; this is a concept that could have fallen flat on its face, but Bonneville makes it work.

So the words describe strong feelings and emotional conflicts. The singing and playing never force these emotions upon the listener. And the feelings are exposed by the lack of narrative; I haven’t encountered this type of songwriting very often, but in the end it works quite well. I am tempted to want an author to write a collection of short stories filling in all the missing pieces in these songs; but they would probably lose much of their immediacy and power if they were explained. So my advice is, listen to these songs, and live in the moment for a little while.


Ray Bonneville: Sabine River

Ray Bonneville: Carry the Fallen