The mystifying musical career of RA Munro Carreau is steeped in, well, mystery.  The artistic enigma has long been considered one of the Tri-City's ethereal musical legends and favored sons.

For decades, in Sasquatchesgue fashion, untold peoples either claimed to have seen him, or knew others that did, though none could produce distinguishable or indisputable proof.  Thus, Carreau was simultaneously nowhere and everywhere.  Then in 2010, in a media blitz that rivaled the mind-numbingly incomprehensible discovery of the Coelacanth, Carreau materialized with the Flood Road Boys.  Holy hot magondy!  A living specimen in the form of RA Carreau was thrust into the spotlight, for all the world to relish with awe...yes, another of life's mystery's was answered, but of course, the presence of Carreau with FRB, no less, has only raised that many more questions and plunged the man even further into the crevasse of intrigue.  While we can't disclose answers to many questions raised, we can give hungry fans some further insight into the fabric of this musicological curiosity.

Step back, if you will, to the Cold War and arms race.  While some may vaguely recall October 4, 1957 as the date that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, historians generally concur that the global significance of the date was more due to Carreau's arrival, and not some spinning piece of tin's departure.  It happened, of all places, in a small Nunnery Hospital in the Town of Climax, state unknown.  By all accounts, it was a real screamer, and led to the facility's abrupt closure that same year, and the dissolution of the Religious Order.

Sure,all babies are expectedly born with an attached umbilical cord.  Carreau, it is said, allegedly had eight chords, and was playing various tunes on them throughout his marathon 79-hour delivery.  The story holds that the wildly popular, anonymous psycho-folk recordings that surfaced in the early 1960's, dubbed "Operation Stirrup Songs", were actually recordings of infant-prodigy Carreau, pirated by the operating room crew that fateful month in October.

In 1965, RA, a child of only 8 years, had formed a loose group with a traveling band of Tibetan Monks, called The High Mountain Grasshoppers.  During performances, members of the band implored listeners to 'snatch a pebble' from their hands, and meditate between sets. Yak products, such as cheese, milk, and clothing, were sold at various concessions booths.

Between '65 and '95, hundreds of people reportedly saw Carreau, or knew others who claimed to have seen him, in a variety of smoke-filled cafes, ale houses, concert halls and arenas.  RA was also linked to the hyperbolic punk band, Random Acts Men Of Non Existent Souls, which some claim to have later morphed into the RAMONES. In each of these cases, eye witness accounts invariably described a man in costume or otherwise disguised, and always, the mystery artist was whisked away from the music scene too quickly to make a concrete identification.  Even the expose in Old TIMEE Magazine in 1975 was non-descript in its ability to confirm Carreau as the decades music sensation...fans knew better...

Finally, in late 1995, the Turin-like shrouded Carreau surfaced briefly in persona bonfida, gigging with "Bag Full of Stuff".  After sold-out shows in East Wallachia, Myanmar, and the beltway of Hong Kong, Carreau dissolved again in the musical netherworld, always heard but never seen.

After another 15 years in the mist, Carreau materialized onstage with the Flood Road Boys at the Rhythm on the Ridge Music Festival in Rotterdam, NY.  The energy of this single show pushed the man-myth back in the forefront of entertainment news, commensurate only with FRB's stature amongst fans, artists, and the world.  We've since confirmed that nNothing is out-of-bounds for this multi-corded troubadour, including flame-retardent spandex pants and fez hats, which he's often seen sporting at shows.  Today, Carreau has settled into his rightful place amongst fellow artistic giants in the Flood Road band.  He deftly handles his acoustic and electric mandolins, guitars, cowbell and pan trombone with disconcerting ease.  

INFLUENCES: Wang Chung, Chia Pets, Buffalo Jerky, Zircon encrusted tweezers, Pan Flutes and Pan Trombones

DISCOGRAPHY: Operation Stirrup Songs 1, 2 and 3 - (Unconfirmed 1962, 1963, 1964)

Flood Road Live - (2010)

Copyright@2009 by J. Peter Yakel and Flood Road.

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RA Carreau belting out a tune at the Waterford Tugboat Roundup in 2010.












RA Carreau, right, enthralls massive crowds at Brown's Brewery in Troy, NY, as Professor Schultz, left, accompanies on the banjo.