you wrote something as moving as "Jolene"?

And at least he writes his own songs, and plenty of them for that matter From what I've heard in/on numerous live recordings is a couple more albums worth of strong material. His producer, Ethan Johns, who's no musical slouch himself, has called him an amazing performer/ songwriter.

I'm all for honest opinions here and we are all entitled to have them,. Hell I've been known to bash a few artists on this very site in the past. However, I would venture the main reason Ray would turn some folks off, would be the subject matter of most of his songs and the format, style, tempo in which they are written/performed. Ray is heavy on melancholy, broken hearts and depression. Like Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley and many more before him, Lyrics are not what you remember the artist for. That is not to sat that they where bad lyric writers. I think Ray is a very good songwriter and lyricists but I tend to favor the melancholy a little more than most folks.

(Have any of you seen Townes Van Zandt live or heard one of his numerous live recordings or studio albums. Boy those sure were a pick me upper?)

If you really dig this guy and his music head over to the message board on his web site. There, you'll find numerous goodies to download, including his rare independent releases (before his RCA debut), plus numerous live shows which include some covers and many new songs. The bummer is when his sophomore release drops next year, I'm venturing most of the songs won't be new to his loyal fan base.

Now about his performance on ACL, his voice was in great form and stage persona was as usual. The final two tracks were newer songs not available on "Trouble", the latter "Heaven is a Honkey Tonk" is normally as raucous rock song. This striped down version was a treat for me to see and hear. The performance and interview captured Ray's personality perfectly. Shy, articulate, insecure and humble, a rare thing to find in contemporary music these days, which seem to be driven by giant PR campaigns in a media driven, bombastic, now-it-all world.

Thank god for artists like Ray LaMontagne,

and Josh Ritter, Mary Gauthier, Erin McKeown, Amy Rigby, Denison Wittmer, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Jose Gonzalez, David Gray, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Alisdair Roberts and Kate Rusby to name just a few more