July 30-Ray Bonneville & Cary Morin

$35.00

$30 in advance, $35 at the door

Potluck dinner at 6pm, Concert at 7pm

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Acclaimed raconteur Ray Bonneville strips his bluesy Americana down to its essentials and steeps it in the humid grooves of the South, creating a compelling poetry of hard living and deep feeling. His ninth release, At King Electric, delivers more than his trademark grit and groove. Songs such as “The Next Card to Fall” and “Codeine” gleam with intimate narratives of characters reaching for hope and wrestling with despair. Rich guitar and harmonica lines resonate over spare but spunky rhythms, while Bonneville’s deep, evocative voice confesses life’s harsh realities. 

Jim Withers (Montreal Gazette) describes his sound as “folk-roots gumbo… a languid Mississippi Delta groove, seasoned with smooth, weathered vocals and a propulsive harmonica wheeze.” Whether performing solo or fronting a band, playing electric or acoustic guitar, Bonneville allows space between notes that adds potency to every chord, lick, and lyric. Thom Jurek (Allmusic.com) remarks, “With darkness and light fighting for dominance… he’s stripped away every musical excess to let the songs speak for themselves.” 

Often called a “song and groove man,” Bonneville has lived the life of the itinerant artist. From his native Quebec, he moved to Boston at age twelve, where he learned English and picked up piano and guitar. Later, he served in Vietnam and earned a pilot’s license in Colorado before living in Alaska, Seattle, and Paris. Six years in New Orleans infused his musical sensibilities with the region’s culture and rhythms. And then, a close call while piloting a seaplane proved pivotal: After two decades working as a studio musician, playing rowdy rooms with blues bands, and living hard, Bonneville’s lifetime of hard-won experience coalesced into an urge to write his own music. 

Ray recorded his first album, On the Main, in 1992. He’s since released nine albums, earned wide critical and popular acclaim, and won an enthusiastic following in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. His awards include a prestigious Juno, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, for his 1999 album, Gust of Wind. In 2012, Ray won the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. His post-Katrina ode, “I Am the Big Easy,” earned the International Folk Alliance’s 2009 Song of the Year Award, placed number one on Folk Radio’s list of most-played songs of 2008, and was recently covered by Jennifer Warnes for the BMG label. 

Other notable artists who have recorded his songs include Ronnie Hawkins (“Foolish”) and Slaid Cleaves (“Run Jolee Run”). Ray has shared the bill with blues heavyweights Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Dr. John, J.J. Cale, and Robert Cray, and has guested on albums by Mary Gauthier, Gurf Morlix, Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and other prominent musicians. He has performed at renowned venues around the world, including South by Southwest, Folk Alliance, and Montreal International Jazz Festival, and plays over 100 shows per year across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. When not on the road, he resides in Austin, Texas.

Cary Morin – Described as “one of the best acoustic pickers on the scene today,” Cary Morin brings together the great musical traditions of America like no other. With deft fingerstyle guitar and vocals that alternately convey melodic elation and gritty world-weariness, Morin crafts an inimitable style often characterized as roots-infused Native Americana with hints of bluegrass, folk, blues, and rock. He has performed at renowned venues across the globe, including the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center, and is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. David Bromberg remarks, “Cary Morin is a unique and brilliant guitar player, songwriter and singer. As a guitar player, I have huge respect for Cary’s style and technique…. If you haven’t heard him yet, you should. Try to remember that it’s only one guitar.” Music critic Bill Hurley writes, “His guitar skill is jaw-dropping, his voice is warm, worn of world experience, and his songwriting allows both of those things to flourish and captivate anyone in the room.”

A tribute to the American South, Morin’s seventh solo release, Dockside Saints, was produced and engineered by multi-Grammy winner Tony Daigle at the renowned Dockside Studio. The album is an expansive musical vision, merging Cary’s celebrated style of Americana with the spirit and sounds of Cajun, Creole and Zydeco music. Fueled by a band of Lafayette-area heavyweights, it jumps out of the gates with rocking New Orleans rhythms and then wades deep into lyrical ballads. Throughout, the album is punctuated with head-bobbing southern grooves. Its sound ranges from exuberant to subtle, while exploring themes of love, faith, hardship, and heritage. Cary comments, “This collection of songs represents our annual migration, just as my ancestors migrated from this region to the Western Plains so many centuries ago, sharing culture through music and more along the way. It is the product of our imagination of what was, and what has become our love of the sounds of the South.”

Adding to his many awards, in 2019, Cary Morin took home an Indigenous Music Award for Best Blues CD for the second time. The same year, he also was named Telluride Blues and Brews Blues Champion and won a Telly bronze award for his music video “When I Rise.” In 2018, he won an Independent Music Award for Best Blues CD, an honorable mention in the 2018 International Songwriting Competition, and a Native Arts and Cultures Fellowship. In 2017, he won an Indigenous Music Award for Best Blues CD and a First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellowship. He also was nominated that year for Best Acoustic Blues Album by Blues Blast Magazine. Additional accolades include a nomination for the 2016 Best Blues CD in the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Awards, a nomination for the 2015 Indigenous Music Award for Best Folk Album, and a nomination for the 2014 Indigenous Music Award for Aboriginal Entertainer of the Year. In 2013 and 2014, he won the Colorado Blues Challenge Solo Championship. He has over 35,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, with over 3 million hits on a single song, as well as over 18,000 Facebook followers.

Cary has collaborated with, shared the stage with, or opened for numerous music legends, including Los Lobos, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Osborne, David Bromberg, Arlo Guthrie, Tony Trishka, Guy Davis, David Wilcox, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Spencer Bohren, Charlie Musslewhite, Brian Stoltz, the Subdudes, and Phil Cook, to mention a few.

As an internationally touring musician, Cary has performed in the US, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, and the UK. He has played renowned venues including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Paris Jazz Festival, Winter Park Jazz Festival, Folk Alliance International, River People Festival, Shakori Hills Festival, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Rochefort En Accords festival in France, Copenhagen Blues Festival, and many more. His music has reached millions on national TV in Japan, France, and the UK, as well as on national radio in the US (NPR’s Beale Street Caravan), UK (BBC’s Whose London), France (RFI), Switzerland, and Belgium.

In 2011, “Ole Midlife Crisis,” a song Cary wrote and performed with the Pura Fé Trio, placed at number 17 on France’s iTunes blues chart. Additional credits include Tribe at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, and co-authorship of Turtle Island, a 50-member production that played two consecutive years to sold-out audiences in Northern Colorado. With the Red Willow Dancers, he was a guest of the internationally renowned Kodo Drummers, performing at their 1998 Spring Festival and additional dates in Japan. In 1989, he founded The Atoll, a rock-reggae-blues band that toured the US for over 13 years.

In addition to his solo pursuits, Cary performs with his band Cary Morin & Ghost Dog, a high-energy roots rock band. He also collaborates with Will Kimbrough, Grayson Capps, and Corky Hughes in a group known as Rancho Deluxe.

Morin was born in Billings, Montana. A Crow tribal member with Assiniboine Sioux and Black heritage, and son of an air force officer, he spent the bulk of his youth in Great Falls, where he cut his teeth picking guitar standards at neighborhood get-togethers. When not touring the US and Europe, he calls Northern Colorado home.