Blue not the only color in Coco Montoya’s box of crayons

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Guitarist Coco Montoya, who played for 10 years with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, considers himself more than just a blues musician.

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Coco Montoya even listens to the Bee Gees.

The left-handed blues guitarist listens to doo-wop, Latin, old rock ’n’ roll, country and big band, which explains his eclectic style.

“If you don’t use all the experience of the things you hear, bring it out in your playing, you’re selling yourself short,” Montoya says recently during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. “To me, that’s what it’s all about. Play it all out.

“I listen to the Bee Gees. I listen to the Beach Boys. I listen to a lot of things. Someone once said to me, ‘Don’t ever admit you listen to the Bee Gees.’ I said, ‘Did you ever see them live? Did you ever see those guys? They were incredible. It’s good music, wonderful harmony, incredible stuff.’ Am I a Bee Gee? No. Would I write stuff like that? No. But the influence is in there.”

It’s funny because the Brothers Gibb became the big stars of disco, a genre that almost killed Montoya’s career.

In the early ’70s, he was the drummer with blues legend Albert Collins. But when disco came through the door, live music — particularly blues — went out the window.

“By the time disco came along I was playing little clubs everywhere I could,” the 57-year-old Montoya says. “It ended my drumming career.”

Collins took a job as a truck driver. Montoya went to work for a computer parts firm. In a funny way, it resurrected his career.

“I was not going to get back into the business. I was done,” he says. “I paid off my bills. If you know anything about musicians, you know they usually have quite a few bills. Anyway, I got a day job and had money in my pocket for the first time, so I went out and bought an amp and a guitar.”

Montoya had played guitar at home as a kid in Santa Monica, Calif., though he switched to drums when he joined teen bands. When he returned to guitar, he’d jam at parties or sit in with friends. One place he gigged for fun was the Central Club, now the Viper Room, in West Hollywood.

“I don’t think you’ll ever see it again — a lot of stars, rock stars, pop stars, blues stars and nobodies getting up at a jam session and playing together, getting up there and singing. Rod Stewart would jam. John Belushi, that’s where he was doing his jamming when he passed away,” Montoya says. “That’s where I played. It was like a bowling night for me. I’d take my guitar down, play, get drunk, have fun.”

Legendary bluesman John Mayall dropped by one night in 1985 and heard Montoya play. He invited him to join the reorganized version of the Bluesbreakers.

“I told him I’d need a couple of days to think about it,” says Montoya, who really didn’t. “John Mayall was one of my heroes. I was frightened to death, but I did it. John Mayall brought me back into the music business. It was a wild ride.”

After 10 years with the Bluesbreakers, Montoya decided it was time to strike out on his own.

“Change was necessary. It was a good move. Scary, sure,” says Montoya, who didn’t know a thing about running a band. “At the time I was a pretty bad alcoholic and drug user. The first thing I had to do was to clean up my act. I decided to sober up, get my head clear and ‘open my own store,’ as I call it. I’ve been 15 years clean and sober now.”

Montoya has recorded a half-dozen solo albums in the past 14 years. His debut, “Gotta Mind to Travel,” earned him recognition as Best New Blues Artist at the Handy Awards. He followed with two more albums on Blind Pig (“Ya Think I’d Know Better” and “Just Let Go”) and three on Alligator (“Suspicion,” “Can’t Look Back” and “Dirty Deal”). He’s covered everyone from his mentor Collins’ “Dyin’ Flu” to Holland-Dozier-Holland’s “Something About You.”

“I don’t write a ton of things,” he says. “I’m pretty picky about my material. I’d rather do something that’s the right time and the right place than just mass produce. I’m more of a touring person.”

Montoya describes himself as “just another hybrid blues musician influenced by my experiences in music.”

He says blues purists — whom he calls “blues Nazis” — may not accept the diversity in blues, but that’s their problem, not his. He prefers the philosophy of the late Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, who objected to being labeled a blues musician.

“He loved the blues but what he said is he also plays country, big band, swing, all kinds of things as well as the blues. He wasn’t just a blues man. Being called a blues man didn’t cover it all.”