Music review: Big Room audience dances to Coco Montoya's blues sound

Music review: Big Room audience dances to Coco Montoya's blues sound
04/22/2010
By BRUCE SMITH-PETERS
ChicoER.com

CHICO -- When the first notes of "Back in a Cadillac" came from Coco Montoya's purple Stratocaster the sold-out crowd -- mostly women at first -- began to filter to the dance floor of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Big Room, drawn to move and feed off the energy and emotion of the blues. Throughout Sunday's 13-song, nearly two-hour set, a steady stream migrated stageward to fill up on some tasty guitar work from a man who learned at the feet of some of the masters.

Montoya was a drummer in several Southern California rock bands when, after a chance meeting in 1971, the great bluesman Albert Collins asked him to keep the beat on a west coast tour that wound up being a five-year gig. Sitting in hotel rooms on the road, the Master of the Telecaster taught Montoya the "icy hot" guitar playing style that he had become known for.

No easy feat, considering Montoya is left handed playing a right-handed strung guitar. He was not only mirroring Collins, but playing upside down as well. In that, he was like another of the blues legends, Albert King, who Montoya says actually introduced him to the blues at a 1969 show when King's band played a set between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Iron Butterfly.

Taking a break from the rigors of the road, Montoya returned to Southern California, kicking around in bar bands until 1984 when fate intervened once again. The Godfather of the British blues John Mayall was celebrating a birthday at a bar where Montoya was playing guitar.
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After an impromptu performance of "All Your Love," Mayall contacted him about joining his reconstituted Bluesbreakers. A decade and three albums later, Montoya struck out on his own and was named the Blues Foundation's Best New Artist in 1996.

Long established for blazing guitar work, Montoya's got an expressive voice as well, something that gets more attention on his new release "I Want It All Back." With more of an R&B and soulful feel, thanks to producers Keb' Mo' and Jeff Paris, this new direction has not been without some complaint among die-hard Coco locos. Montoya even seemed a bit defensive when talking about the new songs quickly explaining "we only know a couple of them," as if trying to head off an adverse crowd reaction.

He shouldn't have been concerned. There was nothing but smiles and love, and the steady stream of dancers in the Big Room this night. When he slowed the mood down for the title track of 1996's "Ya Think I'd Know Better," couples took over the floor looking for an opportunity to get closer and sway to Montoya's slow and sexy slide work.

Later, the Buster Brown classic "Fannie Mae" from the new disc brought a big movement of people out to shake it. "Turning Away from Love" saw another wave flood the floor as the crowd churned like an eddy, reassembling itself in different forms to the pulsing beat of the rhythm section (drummer Randy Hayes and Nathan Brown on bass) and keyboardist Brant Leeper, whose Hammond XK-3 digital organ didn't quite have that same deep resonance and rich tone of the classic B-3, but it must be much easier to move and maintain on the road.

On "Good Days, Bad Days" Montoya's quiet, subtle solo brought the room to a whisper as he gently squeezed and slid the strings between his thumb and index finger making them softly "wha" and whine, while commanding the attention of the crowd amazed by the deftness of his delicate technique. It was like good love making: slow, purposeful, and with layers of emotion.

Finally, the encore was the scorching "My Side of the Fence" from 1997's "Just Let Go." This was the rockin' blues that everyone came for, and knowing it was their last chance to dance the movers and shakers were up doing their thing getting one final taste of Coco's blues.