Just six months ago, Amy Ray rocked the House of Blues with Emily Saliers, her counterpart in the Grammy-award winning folk-rock duo, The Indigo Girls. On Wednesday, April 18th, Amy Ray is returning to Boston to share her latest album, Lung of Love, with fans at Brighton Music Hall.
Lung of Love is a fourth installation of Amy Ray’s series of solo albums. According to Ray’s website, her solo work has hailed as considerably more defiant than The Indigo Girls’ music, stemming from long-time involvement in activism. While Ray’s political voice resonates in her newest album in songs like “From Haiti” and “Give It A Go,” the album is an exploration of more personal questions, like what it means to be in love, to be in pain, and ultimately, to be alive.
It is Ray’s raw, earnest expression of emotion that brings her songs to life. While the album name is shared with one of its songs, it also emerges from a deeper sentiment that characterizes the album as a whole.
“All of the songs point to the conflict between the limitations of our body and the desire we have to rise above that, and that fight that happens where you want to be more than you are,” said Ray in a phone interview with The Daily Free Press, “And in the end you have to say ‘You know what, this is how I express myself, I sing, I breathe, I exist like everybody else.’”
Ray’s notion of self-acceptance, of being okay with you really are, resonates throughout the entire album, but Lung of Love is not the first testament to Ray’s authenticity. Ray is no stranger to the importance of accepting yourself. Despite living in the Deep South, a social climate known for its conservative perspective, Ray was an early celebrity to be openly gay, according to her website.
After five solo albums and more than fifteen with Saliers, Ray said that one of the most important things she’s learned along the way is the importance of self-acceptance.
“You go through times when your ego really gets hurt because everybody doesn’t love it, and you struggle with trying to fit in to what people expect, or in certain ways you want success, and I think over time I’ve learned you’ve got to be comfortable with yourself and just do what you do because you love it,” Ray said.
Lung of Love is not just about accepting yourself, but also accepting others. One of the songs that particularly stands out on the album, “I Didn’t,” is about loving someone who has already been hurt by someone else. “In ‘I Didn’t’, I was really talking about this idea that we all come to the table with our past wounds. We have to learn to accept each other’s hurt and realize that you come to relationships already as broken people in a way. We can either let that hurt us or rise above it and be free.” Many of Ray’s songs are inspired by past relationships, current relationships and friends, said Ray.
Ray’s favorite song on the album, “Little Revolution,” is one of those songs inspired by people in her life. As a song not about a political revolution, but a revolution of the heart, it captures the tone of Ray’s newest album. In key with the nature of the album, it was inspired specifically by people who make Ray “feel alive and vibrant.”
Ray’s energy resonates in all of her songs, complemented by her sense of spirituality. “Spirituality definitely influences my songwriting, and ‘Rock in my Foundation’ is straight from my upbringing,” Ray said. “The harmonies are influenced by gospel and soul. On this record specifically I was going for back up singing that was more from that sort of genre, where it has a different sort of rhythm to it and a different sort of phrasing.”
The result is an album that is very much a human expression of heartbreak and joy, nuanced by her spirituality yet shaped most of all by a sense of wisdom that can only be acquired by living, by trying and failing and trying again, by not giving up. Ultimately, Ray is not an artist who will fall back into overt optimism or pessimism. Instead, she sings it like it is and this honesty resonates not just in her lyrics, but also in her voice.
Amy Ray will be at Brighton Music Hall on Wednesday, April 18, at 9pm. While she said that she will definitely cover the new record, she’ll also “play a little bit of everything,” including some older songs.
http://www.brightonmusichall.com/
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