PORT ANGELES — Blues guitarist Coco Montoya uses his instrument as a natural extension of himself — allowing his chords and riffs to convey his emotions without saying a word.
“Music comes from the heart,” he said over the phone this week.
“It effects you emotionally and immediately. It is as simple as that. That drew me to any kind of music that I can feel. For me it was really important, and blues was just abundant with emotion.”
Montoya will perform live at 8 p.m. Saturday at Studio Bob, 118 1/2 E. Front St.
He will appear with musicians Nathan Brown on bass, Rena Beavers on drums and Brant Leeper on Keys.
Tickets are $25 and are available at newupstage.com.
A guitar is “an extension of your voice,” Montoya, 64, continues.
“That is the way I see guitar playing. Somebody has to come from an emotional place” to make it real.
“You’ve got to effect [the audience] emotionally . . . and I think that is the way I approach guitar playing.”
Guitar One Magazine calls Montoya “the hottest southpaw in the blues” and raves about his “master touch and killer tone.”
For Montoya, it all started with a chance meeting in the mid-1970s with legendary bluesman Albert Collins, who offered Montoya a gig as his drummer.
“I started [drumming] when I was 11 years old,” Montoya said.
But, “it wasn’t until 1972 [that] I got my first touring gig,” he said.
“That was with Albert Collins, and we played extensively in the Northwest. I used to come up here and stay for a month or two at a time and work all around.”
As such, coming back to the Northwest is a real treat for Montoya, he said. Montoya lives in San Fernando Valley, Calif.
“I am really grateful for the opportunity to come back and play in the area. It has been a long time. I started out my career” here, and the area always has a “special place in my heart.”
In the 1970s, Collins took Montoya under his wing and became his mentor — teaching his new protégé the secrets of his “icy hot” style of blues guitar, Montoya said.
Five years later, British blues icon John Mayall happened to see Montoya at a jam session and was impressed.
Mayall recruited Montoya as his guitarist in the legendary Bluesbreakers, following previous Bluesbreaker guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor.
Montoya spent the next 10 years touring non-stop.
Self-taught
Montoya is a self-taught guitarist — playing left-handed and upside down.
“I never had a lesson in my life,” he said.
“I would watch other guitar players to catch what they did. I would wait for that one moment when they would do it, and just stare at them and try and remember where their hand was, where their fingers were.”
That innate curiosity was honed through jam sessions with Collins, Montoya said.
“He would grab his guitar and I would pick up one and we’d play,” Montoya said.
“I just learned by listening, all by ear. I just play it the way I hear it. He was always saying, ‘Don’t think about it, just feel it.’ He taught me to tap into an inner strength.”
Making a switch from drums to guitar, “wasn’t a conscious thought,” Montoya said.
“Guitar was a secondary instrument for me, so I basically would work my day job and go out and play on jam nights and weekends. That is when . . . I had enough money to buy guitars and an amp, and I just went from there [and] evolved into something I thought about.”
Solo Career
After three records with Mayall as a member of the Bluesbreakers, Montoya decided in 1993 it was time to take the lessons from his two musical fathers and begin to sculpt a solo career.
In the early 1990s, he was signed to Blind Pig Records and released three albums: “Gotta Mind To Travel,” “Ya Think I’d Know Better” and “Just Let Go.”
In 2000, Montoya signed with blues label Alligator Records.
In his seven years with Alligator, Montoya released three more records, “Suspicion,” “Can’t Look Back” and “Dirty Deal.”
In 2009, Montoya found a new home in the old world when Ruf Records, a German Blues label, signed him on in effort to introduce him to a world audience.
The album, “I Want It All Back,” was the first step in that commitment.
No set list
Montoya said he doesn’t know exactly which of his songs he will perform during his Saturday performance.
“It varies every night,” he said.
“I don’t go by song lists or anything. I just pull them out of the air. I’ve got seven CDs out, so I will be picking songs from all seven of them.”
However, Montoya can guarantee songs from his latest album, “I Want It All Back,” will be performed sometime during the concert, he said.
Montoya encourages the public to come out and enjoy the show, saying he and his fellow musicians certainly will.
“We’ve all been together for a while now,” and know how to lay down a fat groove and jam together as a team, he said.
“We have fun, which is the most important thing when you are playing live shows, to make sure you are with a group of guys you can have fun [with]. If you are not having fun, then the people are not having fun. If you are enjoying what you are doing, then they will enjoy it.”
For more information about Montoya, visit cocomontoyaband.com.
For more information about the show, call Studio Bob at 415-990-0457.
