Coco Montoya
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Coco Montoya |
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Coco Montoya (born Henry Montoya, October 2, 1951, Santa Monica, California) is an American blues guitarist and former member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.
Musical career
Montoya's career began in the mid 1970s when Albert Collins asked him to join his band as drummer. Collins took Montoya under his wing and taught him his "icy hot" guitar style. The two remained friends even after Montoya left Collins' band.
In the early 1980s John Mayall heard Montoya playing guitar in a Los Angeles bar. Soon after Mayall asked Montoya to join the newly reformed Bluesbreakers. He remained a member of the band for 10 years.
In 1995 he appeared with the Cate Brothers for the resumption of their recording career on their release, Radioland.[1] Since that same year, Montoya has recorded several solo albums.
In 2002, he featured on the Bo Diddley tribute album Hey Bo Diddley - A Tribute!, performing the song "Pills."
Instruments
Montoya is left-handed but plays "upside-down right-handed" guitar. In other words he can play a guitar strung for right-handed playing, with bass strings at the upper edge of the fretboard and treble strings at the lower edge, rotating the guitar so he stops the strings with his right-hand and picks them with his left hand. Thus for him the treble strings are at the upper edge, and the bass strings are at the lower edge. Few other blues guitarists play their guitars left-handed and strung differently, although two exception would be Doyle Bramhall II and Albert King. This contrasts with the style of fellow left-handers Jimi Hendrix and Tony Iommi, amongst others, whose guitars are re-strung for left-handers (although Hendrix would also play guitars that had not been re-strung).
Most current pictures of Montoya playing show him with a guitar such as a Fender Stratocaster, with a left-handed body (a mirror image of the right-handed body), a neck and headstock typical of a right-handed Stratocaster, so the tuners are on the bottom edge for him, and the strings arranged "upside-down" relative to the left-handed body.
Discography
- 1995 Gotta Mind To Travel
- 1996 Ya Think I'd Know Better
- 1997 Just Let Go
- 2000 Suspicion
- 2002 Can't Look Back
- 2007 Dirty Deal
- 2009 The Essential Coco Montoya (compilation)
- 2010 I Want It All Back
References
- ^ Cate Brothers biography, VH1.com