Jolene by Ray LaMontagne

This song is fairly new to me but it is already tied to some stories that will be with me for a long time. During the interview I had with Briana with Second Supper... Hope Waits came up in conversation, so I started the 4 track demo ep she sent me and continued talking. As her song Jolene came on, Briana stopped the conversation and said isn't that a Ray... and she stammered out the last name kind of like I did. I said maybe, Hope didn't pass me the credits. After she left, I quickly became immersed in Ray's music. Incredible that I had missed him. Later I shared the story with Hope, and she told me of an incredible personal family tie to the song because her dad's first wife's name was Jolene, and she helped the healing of her huge family when her mother, (her Dad's second wife) died. Top it off with an intensely powerful song, and it'll be with me forever.

My cut... and stick with it toward the end to see the outtakes...



and I wasn't kidding about that talented Hope Waits ...

You are the best thing... or could be

God I love connections. Recently I have been digging into the connections of personality types and I am an ENTP if are keeping score at home. So totally unrelated, but connected in my mind, a beautiful soul came to interview me tonight on the House Concerts, and while I played a demo song from Hope Waits for her, she mentioned it was a Ray LaMontage song. Undaunted to discover, this seems to be a hit by him, and I'm determined to add it the Rose River set... yes... I'm always looking for a little smoky blues song I can cover..