Ray LaMontagne’s vast catalog spans nine full-length records, many chart-topping radio singles, and a Grammy win, in addition to multiple Grammy nominations. This year will prove to be an exciting one for LaMontagne as he heads out on the road celebrating the 20th anniversary of his first full-length album, Trouble, playing the album in its entirety as well as songs from across his catalogue.
September 2024 was the 20th anniversary of the release of Trouble. Twenty years. Two decades. That’s a lot of water under the bridge. Every cell in my body has changed three times over in that time. I have been three times reborn.
There are moments in your life when you need to place a marker. Some people think that it is brave, or fearless, to never look back. I don’t believe that. For the simple reason that if you never look back you will never see how far you have come. This year I place a sign post: 20 years of Trouble.
When Trouble was initially released, vinyl was considered a dead format, never to breathe again.
Digital audio was the new king. As we know, this has proved untrue. Each year, more and more music lovers are listening to vinyl and appreciating it for its depth and breadth of sound, for its physical heft, for its tangible realness. Over the past few months Brian Lee and Bob Jackson at Waygate Mastering have remastered the album, for the first time specifically for vinyl. And I have to say, it sounds incredible. They have managed to bring out subtleties in the vocals, the instrumentation, that were somehow lost previously. It sounds as if a sonic veil has been lifted. I cannot thank them enough.
To further honor this moment, I am hitting the road this summer for the Trouble 20th Anniversary Tour, playing the album top to tail for the first time since it was released. I hope you will come out and join me and my friends and help us celebrate this moment in time. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
