British singer/songwriter David Gray had released three overlooked albums by the time White Ladder (and its international hit single, "Babylon") brought his mix of acoustic instrumentation and electronic samples to the mainstream.Gray celebrated his mounting recognition by issuing a handful of albums in 2001, including the compilations Lost Songs 95-98 and The EPs 92-94 as well as reissues of A Century Ends and Flesh. Although Gray's popularity proved to be greater in Europe, he became a moderate success in the States as well, and A New Day at Midnight followed up his successful international breakthrough in the fall of 2002. Gray worked with producer Marius de Vries (Björk, Rufus Wainwright) for 2005's Life in Slow Motion; the reflective album debuted at the top of the charts in both Ireland and the U.K., giving Gray the highest chart rankings of his career. The singer then cobbled together his older material for 2007's Shine: The Best of the Early Years. The career-spanning Greatest Hits followed that fall, featuring two new tracks as well as Gray's most popular numbers.

Ray Lamontagne was born in New Hampshire, but as he put it, his family was "just passing through." His parents split up shortly after his birth, and his mother began a pattern of moving her six children wherever she could find employment and housing, which meant Lamontagne grew up as the perennial new kid in school (when and if he went to school at all). He did graduate high school, however, and found himself working in a shoe factory in Maine when he heard Stephen Stills' "Tree Top Flyer" on the radio. The song amounted to an epiphany for Lamontagne, and he made up his mind on the spot to become a singer and musician.


By the summer of 1999 he had put together a ten-song demo tape of his songs, and that demo found its way into the hands of Jamie Ceretta at Chrysalis Music Publishing. The publishing house signed the young songwriter and teamed him with producer Ethan Johns in the studio, resulting in Lamontagne's debut album, Trouble, which was picked up by RCA Records and released in the fall of 2004. With a voice that sounds at times like a huskier, sandpaper version of Van Morrison or Tim Buckley and a tight, emotional writing style, LaMontagne impressed critics with such songs as the title tune, "Trouble," and the cinematic style of pieces like "Narrow Escape." A follow-up album on RCA, Till the Sun Turns Black, appeared in 2006.