Ryan Montbleau Band with Jake Armerding
Ryan Montbleau is a pure soul singer. Not in the traditional sense. His voice — although a sweet, passionate instrument — isn’t packed with Memphis clay like Al Green’s or greased with urban sophistication like R. Kelly’s. Instead, Montbleau sings purely from his soul in a voice every bit as honest, open hearted and original as the stories he tells in his songs. Last seen in the Twin Cities when he opened the evening for Martin Sexton, the young leader of the Ryan Montbleau Band is a one-man antidote for an era of irony. His lyrics about romance, joy, pain and loss care nothing for the barriers of image and style. He is unabashedly romantic, wistful, a soul-searcher looking for the Holy Grails of Love, Virtue and Hope at a time when headlines and the rapid pace of life often make those causes feel lost.
Of course, the love Montbleau has already found is music, and the Ryan Montbleau Band’s new album Patience on Friday spotlights its creators and their dazzling array of sounds in full mutual embrace. The singer-guitarist and his A-Team of bandmates — drummer James P. Cohen, keyboardist Jason Cohen, bassist Matt Gianarros and violist Laurence Scudder — weave a tapestry of folk, blues, rock-steady, country, cocktail music, rock, gypsy jazz and psychedelia that’s exciting, elegant and sometimes even elegiac.
"My touring’s not going to slow down any time soon," vows Montbleau. "I really enjoy going out and meeting people and performing these songs with the guys in the band, who are my closest friends. And when we’re on stage together, the people in the audience are right there with us, so even a sad song can become uplifting. We’re all in it together. When you strip away all the goals I might have as an artist and a working musician, what I really want to do with my life is uplift people," Montbleau says. "My favorite thing in the world is looking out from the stage and seeing smiling faces."
Ryan Montbleau’s latest, Patience on Friday, invites comparisons to Jack Johnson and Citizen Cope, but his soulful voice and pointed lyrics put him ahead of that acoustic crooner crowd (Time Out New York)
Opener will be Massachusetts singer-songwriter Jake Armerding.
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Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
The Boston Globe calls singer-violinist Jake Armerding "the most gifted and promising songwriter to emerge from the Boston folk scene in years."
At 13, Armerding joined his father's bluegrass band, Northern Lights, on fiddle. He soon turned his...
Averaging over 200 gigs per year for the past few years, Ryan Montbleau Band has generated the kind of buzz that only surrounds a talented artist on the verge.
Emerging onto the national music scene from his home base of Boston, Ryan Montbleau has been...
Major Funders
This activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008
Dang..
by jamesthompson23 Tue, 04/14/2009 - 4:42amToo bad I won't be able to be there tonight fellas. Best of luck though!
- James, Resveratrol Researcher