Guitarist, singer and songwriter Monte Montgomery is best described by one word: musical. Having grown up immersed in music, he's been playing professionally since his teens, and is currently one of the hottest draws on the talent-packed Austin, TX music scene. Rated by Guitar One magazine as one of the Top 10 best undiscovered guitarists in America, Montgomery has earned praise from both critics and fellow musicians for his stunning and imaginative six-string work as well as his abilities as a singer and a crafter of ear-catching pop-rock songs imbued with a deep roots sensibility. Now with Wishing Well, his third album and debut release on Antone's Records, Monte Montgomery is bound to erase any notion of being "undiscovered" with a 12-song set that showcases all his gifts with class and finesse.
As Acoustic Guitar magazine notes, "Monte Montgomery is not your typical up-and-coming guitar god. His exquisitely crafted, melodically and rhythmically sophisticated pop songs suggest the best of Fleetwood Mac, Squeeze and The Police, while just happening to integrate the most mind-boggling guitar work in the state of Texas." While Montgomery's two earlier releases put an accent on his guitar virtuosity, Wishing Well displays the full range of his talents. Wishing Well is a full-blooded rock'n'roll experience with a pop slant and rich, stunning guitar work.
Montgomery's deep reservoir of musical talent was fed early on in his life by his mother, folk singer and guitarist Maggie Montgomery. As a young child, he recalls, "she'd sit me on her lap, and put the guitar in front of me, and she'd play the chords with her left hand, and let me strum with my right."
As his mother says with a laugh, "I taught Monte everything I knew about guitar, and that took about five minutes. And then he just took off. I have no idea where the rest of it came from."
Growing up in Birmingham, AL, Montgomery first learned piano and trumpet, and by the beginning of his adolescence, was a voracious listener to pop radio. After his mother moved to the Texas Hill Country to join the legendary musical scene around the restored town of Luckenbach, Monte soon joined her, and began his impressive rise as a musical talent.
Soon after Monte arrived in Texas at the age of 12, his mother opened a bar that became a popular Hill Country picking parlor where Monte quickly absorbed everything he could from his mother and her musical friends. As Maggie notes, "At first he'd sit next to me and strum. Then one day he said, 'Mama, I think I can play a little lead on that song.' And he did. Then he started doing songs by himself. And he started playing my breaks. And then he started taking sets out of my breaks. Then he took all my gigs."
By his mid-teens, Montgomery was playing gigs around Austin, San Antonio and the Hill Country, both with bands as an electric guitarist and in a variety of acoustic configurations. Thanks to his mother's tastes and associations, he absorbed the art of quality songwriting from noted artists like Guy Clark and B.W. Stevenson, and did valuable tutelage time at the regular picking sessions at the Luckenbach General Store and Bar. At the same time, Montgomery also developed his guitar chops from absorbing the work of a variety of respected players such as Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Lee, Steve Vai, Steve Morse and Larry Carlton. "I like it all," he explains of his musical influences.
Soon leading his own band, Montgomery began developing his trademark electrified acoustic guitar style. "I started playing acoustic at the beginning of each set. And the response was so overwhelming that I kept the acoustic up there longer and longer. And then I just started playing all acoustic. I found I could do anything on acoustic that I could do on electric if I turned it up loud enough."
After a stint living and playing in San Antonio, Montgomery set out to make his mark in the highly-competitive Austin musical community. Starting out with a half-hour $50 gig with his band at the Saxon Pub on a Tuesday night, Montgomery quickly attracted packed houses to his own night at the Saxon, eventually graduating to filling some of the biggest clubs in the city. His first two albums on the Heart Music label, 1st and Repair and Mirror, began garnering him words of praise in the music press and an ever-widening touring circuit outside of his Texas home base. As Texas Monthly noted, "He brings taste, precision, economy and a playful sense of timing to poppish songs with sturdy hooks and sings in a voice that's equal parts grit and sunshine. And when you have the ability to make one guitar sound like two, who needs any more support than bass and drums." And in addition to building a burgeoning audience of his own, Montgomery has opened for Bob Dylan, Buddy Guy, Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen and Delbert McClinton, and is a regular attraction on McClinton's annual Sandy Beaches musical cruises.
Montgomery also caught the ear of "Austin City Limits" producer Terry Lickona, who invited the still-relatively unknown talent to tape a segment of the legendary show. When Lickona introduced Montgomery to the audience at the artist's "Austin City Limits" performance, he described Monte's talent in a simple yet profound statement: "Monte Montgomery blows people away. There is no other way to describe it."
With the release of Wishing Well, all of Montgomery's considerable musical talents have come to full fruition. "I felt like it was time for me to grow and show a side of me that's other than the guitar guy. Because I do sing and write," he explains. "There's a lot of guitar on this record, but it's more suited to the song. I tried to make the songs more concise and contemporary."
With an appeal that extends to listeners of all ages and tastes, Montgomery has been making a living playing and singing for people since his teens, building a career through his own hard work and talent. In fact, it's almost as if his future as a musician was all but fated. "I never woke up and said, what am I supposed to be doing with my life? I always knew, even before I played guitar, that I was going to be doing music, one way or another."
|
