Q&A with Ray Bonneville

Brendan Hogan


One mysterious thing about the Boston music scene is that you never really know who has shed their blood, sweat and tears in this city until you ask them. Wandering song poet Ray Bonneville has laid his head a bunch of places (e.g. New Orleans, Colorado, Arkansas, Alaska, Seattle, Paris, France, Montreal, Austin), but his first stop on the lifelong journey was Massachusetts when his family moved here from Canada when he was a kid.

Brendan Hogan got ahold of the troubador as he was meandering his way back to these parts. He plays four shows in New England this week, three of which are with Eliza Gilkyson:


10/26: The Iron Horse in Northampton (w/ Gilkyson)
10/27: Local 121 in Providence
10/28: Common Fence Music in Newport (w/ Gilkyson)
10/30: Fox Run Concert Series in Sudbury (w/ Gilkyson)


Brendan Hogan: You call yourself a North American; born in Canada, grew up in the States, influenced greatly by New Orleans culture. How has the experience of living in many different places contributed to your life as a songwriter and touring musician?

Ray Bonneville: Well, I think the more you go to different places the more you are exposed to different ways of thinking and varying ways of seeing things. It's very much about the people and not so much the geography, although having said that, the landscape is bound to have some degree of influence on you. Take New Orleans for instance; the way people live down there is slower and more relaxed partly due to the temperature and humidity, as you'll find in any warm climate. The big river going through there and the food they prepare has a lot to do with it as well...Anywhere you go, the music you hear and like gets into your blood stream somehow and comes out somewhere down the line...It's a mystery and I like it that way...

Brendan: What music were you listening to growing up? How much stays with you today?

Ray: When I was a teenager we had just moved down from Canada to the Boston area and the British invasion was everywhere, so I listened to it, and we played a lot of that stuff in a little band I was in during the early sixties in high school before they expelled me...but I was also listening and attracted to Elvis Presley and the American music that rocked more. I had a little transistor radio under my pillow and I would stay awake in the dark trying to find that exciting sound.

My friend Brad Hayes and I used to skip school and take the train into Boston to stand outside the strip joints in the combat zone, where the bands were so funky! Country music was talking to me as well—Hank Williams, George Jones, etc. Then when I came out of the US military it was blues music that got my attention. I was in my early twenties when I heard Little Walter, John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Etta James, Jimmy Reed...the list goes on. I started playing the harmonica while driving a cab in Boston before I moved out west.

Brendan: What are you listening to these days?

Ray: I listen to whatever I can believe. What I like is eclectic, but you know I still listen to older blues sometimes. That stuff has always rung true to me. I love some of the African music I hear, so full of color...there's some young cats around these days laying down some real fine stuff that grabs me when I hear it go by...but you know I'm always looking for a melody, so I spend a fair amount of time surrounded by silence. Or should I say the sound of the engine and the tires on the asphalt?

Brendan: Talk a little bit about your guitar/harmonica playing, percussive foot-tapping, and your singing. Who are the primary influences on your style?

Ray: I used to strum out rhythm using a pick for my first ten or fifteen years on the guitar, but then I got attracted to playing with just my thumb and index, so that's what I've been doing for a long time now. I thump, brush, and slap the strings to try and get the fullest sound I can while respecting the silences between notes.

I use the harmonica for color and emotion; I go for tone rather than speed. I prefer a long fat note with vibrato and little hairs on it to fast licks. I used what I first heard and copied to learn my way around it, then I tried to forget all the licks and play what I hear in my head for a particular groove or song. The foot thing is just so organic to music being played by one person on a guitar. It's gonna tap no matter what, so why not use it? it's an old thing and been done effectively for a long time by too many players to list.

Brendan: Talk a little bit about your songwriting process. Where does your inspiration come from?

Ray: Hell, I wish I knew where it comes from. Does anyone know? I just try and write songs because it's fun and I'm addicted to it. The stories come from all manner of endless sources. As much as I can, I try and sketch enough of the story to set the scene, and then let the listener put in the details. A song needs to be believed or you will lose the listener. Like I said before, it's a mystery to me and it's good that way...

Brendan: You've won a Juno Award for your album 'Gust of Wind', have shared stages with B.B. King, Muddy Waters, J.J. Cale, and Robert Cray, and have earned the following and respect of fans by touring behind seven records for 30 years. What's on the horizon?

Ray: I guess I'll just keep on playing for as long as it's in the cards, and I hope that's for a relatively long time. I'm currently working on a new recording for the Red House label....going into the studio here in a about a month...have to see how it goes, but it's always a good time!