Coco Montoya Interview, Page Two

by Tom Watson.

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Tom: But if you were going to give your music, especially Dirty Deal, a backstory, where would the backstory be? When I hear Dirty Deal, but I guess when I hear a lot of the blues, I get flashbacks to honky-tonks, to the little bar that's out in nowhere, an everything goes kind of place. I get a visual.

Coco: For me, on a lot of that stuff, especially songs like “It Takes Time” or “My Own Tears”, you know, those blues tunes, “It's All Your Fault”, it's taking me back to playing in the small clubs in Culver City. To playing through a Deluxe Reverb and cranking it, and my good buddies, still unknown heroes. I've got a buddy of mine that's still my idol as a guitar player and you'll never hear of him. You'll never know anything about him. If you heard him, you'd go, "Holy shit. Where has this guy been?" He's just incredible. He's a wonderful man.

It takes me back to that. I see those small clubs. That’s what I see. It takes me back to what it must've been like for John in the small pubs and stuff with Eric that he used to tell me about. That's where it takes me. I see that in my head when I hear these things, especially stuff like “It's All Your Fault”. That, to me, is probably my hybrid from the John Mayall-with-Eric-Clapton-in-a-pub-somewhere-in-England period. That's my hybrid - now it's me, this is what's come of that. The way Eric influenced me then, the way John influenced me then, when I didn't know him and I'd listen to the Bluesbreaker albums and freak out every night. I must've worn about four or five of those out. I had to keep buying it. That's part of my bible. Then hearing the live stuff eventually, the stuff that they did in Cream. It's like, wow. The fire that Eric had. That's where I kind of went back into that, which was kind of a wonderful place to visit for me.

Tom: “It’s All Your Fault” is a Lowell Folsom song.

Coco: Lowell Folsom. I played drums for Lowell, too.

Tom: You did?

Coco: Me and Walter Trout, Juke Logan, I can think of a bunch of guys, Doug McCloud … we all met each other because we were doing these pick-up gigs with Big Joe Turner, Lowell Folsom, Peewee Creighton, George “Harmonica” Smith, Smoky Wilson, all these old great blues guys were in L.A., either owning some dive club in the scariest parts of L.A., or we were out playing gigs and we'd back these guys up. And Lowell Folsom, I met him through Albert Collins and I ended up doing about four or five … gosh, more than that. I know I did close to 10 gigs with him. He'd call me and go, "I've got this gig." And I'd go, "Okay. I'll be there." And Shaky Jake Harris, all these people.

Tom: You've also got a Johnny Copeland song on Dirty Deal – “It's My Own Tears”.

Coco: Yeah. I'm pretty proud of that. That was a challenge. You mess around with a Johnny Clyde Copeland song and you'd better be able to try and sing. Thank God things worked out as well as they did. And Shemekia [Shemekia Copeland, daughter of Johnny Copeland], I've known since she was a baby.

Tom: Oh?

Coco: Oh, yeah. She's a sweetie. I love her to death.

Tom: She's doing very well.

Coco: Yes, she is. And deservedly so. That girl can sing. That girl can really sing.

Tom: Let's go through the album. But, I have to remember to talk about your gear. Do you want to do that now and then we'll go through the album?

Coco: Let's go through the album now, because I definitely want to mention Dave Steen.

Tom: I was going to, too.

Coco: You know Dave?

Tom: I know of him. Is he going to play guitar on another one of your albums some day?

Coco: We want to get him back out there and do that again. It was fun. He played on the Suspicion album. He did "Get Your Business Straight" and four other tracks.

Tom: He plays rhythm guitar on almost half of Suspicion.

Coco: He's great. He came just to hang out while we were recording Suspicion and I said, "No, no, no. Pick up an axe. Come on out here." We put him out there and made him play. He is a very talented man.

Tom: You two have been writing together for how long now?

Coco: Jeez, we met on my second album [Ya Think I'd Know Better, 1996 Blind Pig Records]. I did one of his tunes – “The Heart of Soul”. Yeah, from then on, he's written songs and we've done his songs and we've written together, one or the other. He's a wonderful, talented man. I just really love this guy. And to hear his demos, you listen to his demos and you go, "Jeez, there's a challenge for you," because he has such wonderful demos. They sound great. I remember me and Jim Gaines going, "God, his demos are so good."

Tom: How do you top them?

Coco: Yeah, how do you top 'em? You want to make something good, but this is so good you almost want to cop it. He's tremendous.

Tom: The title track, “Last Dirty Deal”, sounds like a Robert Cray influence.

Coco: Oh, yeah.

Tom: The chord changes and tempo remind me of Cray.

Coco: Absolutely. I hear it too. I've even confessed to Robert that I have a Robert Cray thing. I love Robert Cray. I think he's phenomenal.

Tom: A great storyteller.

Coco: Some people really think that he's not very … I guess they're looking for back flips on stage or something. That's not Robert's thing. And that's okay, because he's just … he has so much soul. What a singer, what a player. Incredible guitar player, so unique. So his influence, yeah, I get influenced by everybody and anybody. It comes from so many … hell, I listen to the Bee Gees, all right? I listen to everything. I'll find something and somebody will go, "Well, that's jazz. You don't listen to jazz." I go, "I don't care what you want to call it. That appeals to me." I don't analyze. I don't say, "Oh, shit. That's jazz? I can't listen to that." It's never been like that. Or, that's country-western? If I like the song, I like it.

Tom: “Clean Slate” [track 8] has a country tinge to it.

Coco: It could. To me it borderlines that and straight old R&B things, a Memphis kind of R&B thing. It was written by Gary Nicholson and Dan Penn. You can't get more Memphis than that.

Tom: The one that sounded like Memphis to me was “Love Gotcha”.

Coco: Yeah, Lloyd Jones [composer of "Love Gotcha"]. Lloyd is another guy from the Portland, Oregon, area [as is Robert Cray]. I've known him for a long time.

Tom: Have you played together?

Coco: Yeah, we've done shows together. He comes back from the day. He knows Robert Cray real well. They all grew up out there and love playing together. Lloyd knew Albert. I did one of his tunes on Can't Look Back, too - "No Longer Part of Your Dreams", is his tune. So we pulled another one from him. Very talented guy. Very good singer. I love his singing. He's got great groove ideas all the time. His groove ideas are really impeccable, incredible. That's why that song is really based on groove.

Tom: “Love Gotcha”, is a great Memphis R&B song, but, where's the horn section?

Coco: On Lloyd's version, they're there. We didn't do it with horns. I had thought it should have them, but it didn't work out that way. I do hear it, too. I think there should be horns on there. Actually,in hindsight, it's calling out for it.

Tom: But then, when you're on the road, you're not going to take a horn section with you.

Coco: Not unless I get some heavy backing.

Tom: That's kind of a shame these days, isn't it? I love that full B3 and horn section sound. It gives you some respect for the trios that can fill the air.

Coco: Oh, yeah. These guys running around and doing these blues trios and stuff, I think that's awesome. Debbie Davies has a blues trio. I said, "Debbie, I don't know how you do this," because I tried to do a trio and failed miserably. I need help.

Tom: I'd feel like I had to fill up every second with sound.

Coco: Exactly, and I don't know how. And then you've got the issue of trying to sing in one tempo and play rhythm in another. It's like, oh Lord.

Tom: Talk to me about the personnel on Dirty Deal. You've got the guys you take out on the road with you.

Coco: Yeah, I'm very proud of the fact that I've got my guys. Steve Evans [bass] and Randy Hayes [drums] have been with me six years or more. Those two guys are really, really a very strong part of everything I do. Tony Stead has come in and played keyboards with us off and on so we hired him for the whole album just to get this thing going. He was wonderful. He'd play keyboard, then he'd play piano, then he'd play organ. He did it all. It was just great. Of course, we got to use some of the Little Feat guys, which is great, too.

Tom: You've been friends with them for awhile.

Coco: Yeah. I met Paul [Barrere] back in the day when he had the Blues Busters but we didn't really hang out and connect until I did some shows with Little Feat and we jammed and stuff. We ended up talking, and I remember a couple of years ago I said, "I'm really, really way overdue for another album, and if I do another one, would you consider producing it?" He said, "I haven't produced in a long time." But, later he called me and goes, "Let me know if that goes down. I'd really be interested in doing that." It was a perfect fit to me.

Tom: Is that his slide guitar work on “Coin Operated Love”?

Coco: Yeah. And that was the thing, I said, "Paul, on this one I want you to stretch out a little more. I want you to come out a little more." Sometimes people are worried about stepping on toes and stuff, and I said, "No, no. We're going to make music here." Why pull somebody like Paul Barrere who's such a monster slide player and not feature some of it? It's just like on one of my other records, when we did the Lloyd Jones tune, “No Longer Part of Your Dreams”, [Can’t Look Back, 2002, Alligator Records] and my buddy Chuck Kirkpatrick played on the track. I just kind of manipulated it. I went, "Hey, Chuck, just for shits 'n grins, play a track. Just throw me some slide stuff in the tune. I just want to hear something. I want to see what it's going to sound like." And it was great. Then Jim [producer Jim Gaines] looked at me and goes, "That sounds really good." And I said, "Why don't we just leave it like that? I don't need to play lead guitar. Let me sing and just let this guy do some fills. It's not that long a song." It fit the song so well. That, to me, is what music's about. It's not about me. "Sorry, men, we've got 13 tracks of me shredding my fingers up and down."

Tom: Let's open it up a little bit.

Coco: Yeah. Let's give it some color and texture.

Tom: How did you get Dirty Deal, a studio album, to have such a live feel?

Coco: Wow. That was the fearlessness of Paul Barrere [co-producer] and Roger Cole [co-producer and recording engineer]. They kind of literally took what Bruce had said to heart. Bruce Iglauer was saying, "I want something. I don't want the syrupy ballads that you've done before," which I still like a lot. It's one of the things that I've done that shows another side of me. But, Bruce goes, "I want something really raw. Think Chess records." So, "Okay, you want raw?" We got out the rat-tail file and started fucking up the furniture, you know what I mean? There you go. You want this antique? Get my chains out. I'll start beating the hell out of it. That's what it was like. In fact, several of the tunes that I did with the Little Feat guys, there was no direct micing on any of this, so we were really taking chances. It shocked the hell out of Bruce, it scared the hell out of him. Eventually Bruce went in and mixed and pulled it together. That's how we got the live sounds, because a lot of this stuff was just cut raw and live. Some of the solos in there are straight from the take. Some I did overdub, and some I didn't. You've got bass and drums and everything that are not touched.

Tom: It has a live feel and isn’t overly processed.

Coco: I think that's what we were trying to achieve. Trying to get it the old way and just cutting it with whatever imperfections is also what makes things attractive. That's the way it was for the oldies. I love doo-wop and stuff like that. If you listen to these things, you can hear somebody dropping a box in the background. It just adds to the tune. That's just a whole other way of recording. I love Steely Dan. I love that. That's really great. But in the same context, I like something like Tab Benoit, a great guitar player. He goes in, the whole band's playing, he sings it and plays it like he does on the gig, and that's it. Two swipes at it and you pick one. If he hit some bad notes, that's the way it lives. I'm not that extreme, but I can respect that. And sometimes that's where you find the magic moments.

Tom: Getting closer to doing a live album?

Coco: I'm getting closer to being talked into it.

Tom: You're softening up a bit.

Coco: There are the two things that I'm getting talked into: doing a live album and doing a blues cruise. The live album is tough. I make a lot of mistakes live. I'm not very accurate as a guitar player.

Tom: That's what we like, though.

Coco: I clam a lot.

Tom: That's what we like. I'm telling you.

Coco: You'll have it in abundance then, from me.

Tom: It's true. Most of the folks I know that write about music would say the same thing. It's hard for the artist to understand that we're forgiving, that we love that. That's the human element, the natural element.

Coco: I know. That's easy for you to say. But it's true. I know that sometimes you'll go see somebody play, and they're so accurate and so precise, and you can see that they're not taking any chances, and it's boring. I would rather see a guy doing things you never saw him do before. Take Stevie Ray [Vaughan]. He didn't make very many mistakes, but when he did, it was because he was going for something, and he just barely made it there and that's what made it exciting. Or he didn't, but I love where he tried to go.

Tom: And the fact that what he was trying to do was tell us something. The delivery may not have been perfect, but the story was.

Coco: Exactly. You go, "Oh, I love that you tried to do that." You just look at him and go, "God, that's great. What a great idea."

Tom: But I understand what you’re saying. I would never submit the first draft of an article.

Coco: Or the first song I wrote. Oh, my God.

Tom: You've recorded one or more Albert Collins songs on each of your albums. This time you've got one from Gwen Collins [Albert's wife], “Put the Shoe on the Other Foot”.

Coco: Yeah, but I always considered it an Albert tune. I picked it up because Albert used to do it. Gwen wrote quite a bit with Albert. If you look back on “Get Your Business Straight” (1971, Tumbleweed Records), she's on that. I'm not sure, there's a few others I can't remember off the top of my head, but Gwen had a hand in them.

Tom: Are you close with Gwen?

Coco: Oh, yes. She lives in Las Vegas. She comes and sees me when I play there, and I go by and see her. We're still very close. She still lives in the house where Albert passed away. She's a great lady. She's wonderful.

Tom: Music’s been more than business to you. It’s been family.

Coco: I'm blessed. There's no way around it. When things get bad, I can't help but look back and say, "You know what? I'm pretty blessed." I'm pretty blessed no matter what's going on right now. I've had, through Albert and through people like that, a wonderful time. I've been very, very lucky.

Tom: You've had some good hands dealt to you.

Coco: Absolutely. Don’t let the album title fool you. It only pertains to the songs. I've been dealt some great cards. There's no way I'm not going to be grateful for the great things that have come my way. I'd be a fool. It would be a downright sin to be ungrateful for what's come my way.

Tom: What would you say to your fans that know your last two Alligator albums - Suspicion and Can’t Look Back - what would you tell them to look forward to on Dirty Deal?

Coco: I wish for them to open their ears and realize that there are other sides and that I paint with different brushes. I always will. I've always said I am not a traditional blues guitar player. I wouldn't ever claim to be. There's some guys who do very strict traditional blues that are marvelous, that are geniuses at it, and I love them. I'm one of the guys that has a lot of influences, not just blues, and it affects everything. I can't be thinking about what's going to make me a hit record or whatever. I've got to think about what it is that I want to do right now. So the people that listen to me, I want them to open their ears and be open to the fact that maybe I'm doing something a little different that I haven't done with the other albums.

Tom: Dirty Deal is a buffet.

Coco: My intent is always to put up all the flavors that I want, regardless of what people think should be there. I mean, either I did so much rock stuff that the blues people didn't like it, or I did so much blues stuff that the blues-rock people didn't like it. There's no pleasing everybody. If you listen to any of my other albums, you'll see there's a lot of flavors. There should be. I think an album should have that.

Tom: Is there a common thread in these 11 songs? A common denominator?

Coco: Hard to say. “Three Sides” came in from Paul Barrere. “Last Dirty Deal” and “Coin Operated”, me and Dave [Steen] wrote those and brought those in. I wanted to do “Clean Slate” because I'd heard it and loved it. Bruce [Iglauer] brought it to me, but Gary Nicholson let me know that he had written with Dan Penn on that song. “Put the Shoe on the Other Foot” was a pick from me, just to try and do another Albert tune. I've always loved hearing Albert do that one. And Bruce brought in “It's All Your Fault”, “It Takes Time”, “How Do You Sleep at Night”, and “Love Gotcha”. I had thought about Lloyd Jones, but I think Bruce brought “Love Gotcha” to me. We just all picked different ones that we thought would work in this situation. I had a lot of help.

Tom: What does the tour look like for next year? You're probably going to go out in January to support the album.

Coco: Oh, yeah. We're in the works now to try and do as much as possible. I'm going to be out as much as I can. I think it starts January 24 up in Washington, and I go all the way through February and March. I probably don't see home until April.

Tom: Is there a trip to Europe in the works?

Coco: Right now I've got a date in Norway on July 7 at the Skånevik Blues Festival. And I fly into Haugesen. I remember people trying to make me say that right. That's booked right now, but hopefully we'll get more European stuff going on. My intention is to get over to Europe and play some more. It's been awhile. I haven't done enough of that. But most of it I've got in the States. In February and March, I'll be back east, playing in Clearwater, Florida, on February 24 at the Seafood and Blues Festival.

Tom: I wrote a review recently about the Viva Carlos! CD that you played "Jungle Strut" on. How did that come about?

Coco: I just got a phone call from Mike Varney, Shrapnel Records. My bass player, Steve Evans, does a lot of stuff with them. He's done a lot of the Pat Travers albums and Eric Gales albums, which are really great. He said that Mike wanted to talk to me, so I said, "Give him my number, give him my info." Varney got me to go in and do this cut, and I was very honored to do that. It was wonderful. Dave Weckl's on drums, Abe Laboriel's on bass, and Peter Wolf’s on keyboards. It was a great experience. I've never played any Santana stuff like that so it was a big challenge. It took me some woodshedding.

A couple of weeks ago a guy came to my door and said, "I have flowers here for Coco Montoya." Flowers? I go, "Oh, no. Who knows where I live?" And I was almost going to say no, I don't want them. And he goes, "No, you just sign here." And a card's there, and I took the card out, and it was from Carlos Santana. He loved what I did and was a big fan and thought it was great. It was some white roses, roses of friendship. Me and my lady, Lenora, we were floored. We couldn't believe it. It was a very wonderful gesture, and I thought it was a very classy thing for him to do. I met him one time in East Germany back in the Mayall days, but I don't really know the man. I thought that was a very wonderful, classy thing to do.

Tom: That's the kind of person Carlos Santana is.

Coco: I know it. I mean, he had nothing to do with the project. He just got a copy of it, heard it, and was pleased.

Tom: I've been a fan of his from the beginning.

Coco: Me, too. There's no denying the man's wonderful talent. It’s like Albert used to say, "If they don't like me, that's okay, as long as they know what they're hearing." He'd say, "Maybe somebody listens and says that's that damn Albert Collins, I can't stand him. Hey, but he knew who it was. As long as people know who you are." And that's the thing about Carlos. You know it when you hear him, he has his identity, something we're all striving for. But I thought it was a real wonderful class act.

Tom: Very classy. How often does something like that happen?

Coco: Not enough. Not nearly enough. And I really applaud him and appreciate him. And I have nothing but love back to him.

Tom: When I got the Viva Carlos! CD, I was kind of skeptical.

Coco: Hey, when I got the practice disk, I was very skeptical. Oh, Lord. You should've seen my girlfriend, Lenora. She was in the room and was like, "That's … wow …" and I'm looking at her going, "I can't do this. I don't know how to play like this." And I listened to these guys play, and I go, "Oh, Jesus." She goes, "No, you can do it. You can do it." I said, "Okay." I get to the woodshedding and she goes, "See, you're getting it, you're getting it." When I got down there, I said, "Okay, here goes." And we had a good time. Jeff Richman [producer and arranger] was really great. We laughed a lot. It was very low-key and just fun, which was what I really appreciate about it. No insanity. No ball busting. It was just fun, and that's what it should be.

Tom: Richman did a great job with the arrangements.

Coco: Oh, I think he did a phenomenal job. I thought it was great. In fact, Richman's the one who did the harmony line for me, because I studied so hard on the melody that I forgot the harmony part. He goes, "Now you can do the harmony line." I go, "I didn't figure that out." So Jeff picked up my guitar and put the harmony line on it.

Tom: Have you heard A Guitar Supreme? Richman and Varney did the same kind of concept album of John Coltrane music.

Coco: In fact, it's on its way to me right now.

Tom: They have a great idea with this series of CDs. They’re not note-for-note covers. They let the players pay tribute.

Coco: Yeah. That's what I tell people, even when I get the young guys or the young girls that come up and want to sing “Stormy Monday” in a jam session or something. I go, "You know what? If you're going to do that, find some way to put a piece of yourself in it, don't try and do it like T-Bone. Don't try and do it like so-and-so. Just don't do that. Don't sing it like B.B."

Tom: Have your own voice.

Coco: Yeah, that's why all those songs got re-recorded, because each guy did it and they did it their own way, with their own flavor. They added their own touch to it. That's how you can stand listening to those songs. I can't stand listening to somebody do “Pride and Joy” like Stevie [Ray Vaughan], because it's been done. Look at Eric [Clapton]. You can go through a million CDs of his or videos of him and catch him doing “Crossroads”, and it's different every time because he's not going to try and do it like he did it at the Fillmore.

Tom: That’s what's great about his touch, your touch, Santana's touch. I can recognize it, I know the voice. They're going to say something different every time they play, but I know that voice.

Coco: That's exactly it.

Tom: Tell me about your guitars.

Coco: Well, I have mostly Strats. I have some new guitars that are coming in right now from Lipe. Mike Lipe made me a beautiful semi-hollow body that's really gorgeous, and I don't even know what he's calling it. I've got one of those. He gave me a 335 model, and I'm getting a Tele model, but mostly I have my Strats made by Toru Nittono. The reason why I have non-vintage gear is because of the way I play, upside down. And I'm left-handed.

Tom: You use left-handed bodies with right-handed necks.

Coco: Right-handed necks, yeah. So for me to mess around with vintage gear is kind of stupid, because I'd have to devalue it to use it. There's really nothing vintage that's going to be built that way. But I've been using my Strats. I have one that Albert Molinaro put together for me that I used all through the Bluesbreaker days. That's still with me. I'm still using it on stage.

Tom: Is that the white one?

Coco: It was white. It's a little yellow from all the clubs in Europe and smoke, but yeah. I've had that one forever, and I still use it. My latest guitar, though, is a real nice one that Toru made for me that Dale [Dick Dale] signed the headstock.

Tom: I’ve seen that guitar and wondered, did this guy cannibalize a Dick Dale Signature Strat?

Coco: It's the funniest thing. We were at the NAMM show in Los Angeles, Dick Dale and myself. I guess we endorsed Dean Markley [Strings]. So, we're autographing right next to each other, and here's one of my idols, Dick Dale. Plus we play the same way, upside down, left-handed. It was hilarious. We were talking there for a minute, both signing, and he's almost John Mayall-ish. "Oh, that's nice." Just doing his thing, trying to get through this. So, I pulled my guitar out and said, "Check it out. Man, you've been a big inspiration for me. Thank God there was somebody like you." And he grabs it, looks at it, and goes, "Hey. Nice." He plays a little thing on it, and I said, "I'm proud that you played it." And out of nowhere, he pulls out his Sharpie, signs the headstock and hands it back to me. Lenora, my lady, she looked at me and her mouth dropped. She goes, "Why didn't you say anything?" I said, "It's not as funny if you say anything." Because I never asked him to sign it, he just did it. I thought that was hilarious.

Tom: What amps are you using these days?

Coco: I'm using Steve Carr amps right now. I'm really happy with his stuff. He's out of North Carolina. He's just tremendous. I'm using what's called a Slant Six, and it's 80 watts. It's a head. I use a 2-12 cab with 2 EVs in it. It peels paint. But now I'm also using a small amp of his called the Vincent. It's a 33-watt [combo] amp for the smaller clubs, and it's got one 12 [12" speaker] in it. Sounds amazing. It's really a neat little amp. I've been pretty happy using his stuff for the last four years.

Tom: Looks like you’re using Bill Lawrence pickups.

Coco: They are. You're the first one to really recognize that they are Bill Lawrence. Those are the ones that I had all through the Mayall days. Albert Molinaro turned me on to them, and I've used them exclusively since. I think Bill calls them L-250s. Somebody told me he’s stopped making them, but I think he'll make them for you if you ask. He still has the same machines that he wired mine on. Maybe someday he'll make a couple of Montoya signature pickups. I don't know. But those are the ones that I used exclusively through all of my Mayall days and pretty much through all of my albums.

Tom: And even today, right?

Coco: Yeah. Those are my mainstays.

Tom: Tell me about some of your effects.

Coco: I'm using this great pedal right now called the Hoochee-Mama by Tim Brown, who's also out in North Carolina. Absolutely wonderful pedal. As soon as Tim brought it out to me, I said, "Woo. I've got to have this." It's a real warm pedal, real fat. It doesn't seem to squash the tone. It's kind of fat and wide. I have a Klon [Centaur] that stays in my pedal board that I use off and on. I have a Line 6 modular pedal for just the chorus effect and their tremolo. I'm pretty much sparsely using those things because the amp does so well on its own.

Tom: Anything else about Dirty Deal that you'd like to tell me?

Coco: Just buy the damn thing. Tell people to buy it.

Tom: Buy it.

Coco: Help me put this band through college. [Laughs] The performances on Dirty Deal by all the musicians is really the focal point of this album and what makes it a good album. If you focus on that, then you're getting what's intended. And I think the way it was recorded, the live feel, adds character.

Tom: Character’s an important element in music. In 2007 I’ll be interviewing a number of guitarists that are over 60. I want to hear their stories before we lose a lot of these players.

Coco: Oh, man, that makes so much sense.

Tom: Many listeners haven't been to the honky-tonks and roadhouses of days gone by. They'll miss a lot of the color and background that some of this music arose out of, so we'd better capture what we can.

Coco: I think the time is now, which is what Art Tipaldi started to capture when he wrote a book [Children of the Blues: 40 Musicians Shaping a New Generation of Blues Tradition, 2002, Backbeat Books] about us guys that kind of got lost in the shuffle. Those kids that have come out and became the blues icons that took it to pop again, it seems like they forgot about James Harman, me, Joe Louis Walker, Debbie Davies, Anson Thunderbird, people like that. We're the second generation. We learned directly from the legends. I think that, to me, if you wanted to ask me what needs to be told, that needs to be told because we have lost nearly all of the originators of this music. All you've got left are the children. And those children are getting older now, and those children have info.

Tom: They have stories.

Coco: I think it's important. There's validity there. And there are things that could help other players and young kids understand what it was like. I'm a direct link to Albert Collins. I'm a direct link to Lowell Folsom. All my buddies, James Harman and all of those guys, they're the direct link to Big Joe Turner and everybody.

These are stories that should be told.
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Dirty Deal Track Listing
1. Last Dirty Deal (Coco Montoya & Dave Steen)
2. Three Sides to Every Story (John Mooney & Gary Nicholson)
3. Love Gotcha (Lloyd Jones)
4. How Do You Sleep At Night? (Mike Andersen)
5. It Takes Time (Otis Rush)
6. It's My Own Tears (Johnny Copeland)
7. Coin Operated Love (Coco Montoya & Dave Steen)
8. Clean Slate (Dan Penn, Gary Nicholson & Carson Whitsett)
9. Put the Shoe on the Other Foot (Gwen Collins & Hugh Williams)
10. It's All Your Fault (Lowell Fulson)
11. Ain't No Brakeman (Fontaine Brown)

Related Links
Coco Montoya
Coco Montoya Band on MySpace
Alligator Records
2nd Douro International Blues Festival, Porto, Portugal
Dirty Deal on Amazon.com

More articles by Tom Watson

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