As an aside, the first two Ray L. albums showed great promise. However his live appearance last year in my area was leaden. In concert he makes the mistake of combining hepped-up earnestness with a control-freak determination to throttle down his fine accompaniests so as not to distract from his showboating egotism. The introverted style that he turns to such great effect in the studio cries out for a looser more electric live presentation. The ethusiastic audience was primed to hear this interesting new artist succeed-- one wants this guy to be the next Neil Young or at least Cat Stevens. Instead he was tone deaf to the opportunity and by the end of the evening a good chunk of the audience was silent & immersed in text messaging.
