Ray Bonneville - On the Blind Side

Bitrate: 320K/s
Year: 2023
Time: 30:41 
Size: 70,6 MB 
Label: Self-Released
Styles: Blues/Folk/Americana
Art: Front 

Tracks Listing:
 1. Lucky Moon - 3:18
 2. Oh The Night Is Long - 2:33
 3. The Way It Was Before - 3:26
 4. Never Get The Love Thing Right - 3:21
 5. On The Blind Side - 4:01
 6. Night Cab - 4:02
 7. Made Yourself A Home - 3:11
 8. Streetcar Man - 2:40
 9. Even With Time - 4:06

Like good wine, Ray Bonneville improves with age. In particular, his albums Bad Man's Blood from 2011 and Easy Gone from 2014 are excellent albums. On the Blind Side is now the tenth album by this Canadian-born singer-songwriter who lives in Austin, Texas. Even though he is almost seventy-five, he still performs about a hundred times a year. This experienced musician has worked in the past with big names from Americana and blues such as Mary Gauthier, Gurf Morlix, Eliza Gilkyson and Ray Wylie Hubbard. He wrote songs together with Tim O'Brien, Phil Roy and Gurf Morlix. The new album was co-produced by Texan singer-songwriter/producer Will Sexton, who also plays. The songs on On the Blind Side show a more introspective side of Bonneville, probably because the songs were written during the Corona pandemic. The title song in particular gives a clear insight into the inner soul of Bonneville. The songs float between hopeful (Lucky Moon) and sinister (Night Cab). In the opener Lucky Moon I notice that his hoarse voice increasingly resembles that of David Munyon. The sinister Night Cab is set in a fifties Film Noir setting. His experience as a taxi driver in three different cities in his younger years helped him write this song. These nine organic songs immediately fell into place for me. Just as if I had known the album for years. In addition to Sexton, Bonneville sometimes received some help from drummers Rick Richards, Chris Hausler and Andre Bohren on the songs he wrote himself. Amy La Vere also plays double bass on On the Blind Side and Richie Lawrence plays electric piano on three songs. The only downside to this excellent On the Blind Side is that it only lasts half an hour. Theo Volk

On the Blind Side