Coco Montoya Interview

by Tom Watson.

Don't let the title of Coco Montoya's upcoming album, Dirty Deal (2007, Alligator Records), fool you. Life's dealt the 55-year-old guitarist, singer and songwriter a fine hand on more than one occasion.

In the early '70s, a chance meeting led to Montoya's five year stint as the drummer with blues legend Albert Collins. Though he played guitar since the age of 13, it was the Collins influence that inspired Coco to take the instrument seriously. Collins took Montoya, who was then in his early 20s, under his wing, showing him how the guitar can be used to express feelings and serve as the instrumental voice of the blues. Montoya had been dealt a musical royal flush.

However, the cards ran cold for both Montoya and Collins in the late '70s when clubs turned away from the blues in favor of the latest craze, disco. Collins turned to driving trucks and working construction while his protege donned a tie and held a day job.

This hiatus proved to be a mixed blessing for Montoya. He paid the bills while working on the clock but spent many nights taking the stage at various blues jams in Los Angeles, developing his singing and guitar playing. "I got better as a guitar player, but it was never a goal of mine to become a musician again. I wasn't in the business and I wasn't going to be."

Wrong.

In the early '80s, Montoya's dealt another pat hand. John Mayall hears Coco at one of the L.A. jams and when Mick Taylor leaves The Bluesbreakers Montoya gets the call. He'll spend almost 10 years with John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers, becoming a member of the electric guitar Bluesbreaker fraternity that includes Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Harvey Mandel, Mick Taylor, Kal David, Walter Trout, and Buddy Whittington.

In 1993, Montoya decided it was "time to leave the (Bluesbreakers) nest" and go his own way. He has since released six albums: Gotta Mind To Travel (1995, originally on Silvertone and later picked up by Blind Pig Records); Ya Think I'd Know Better (1996, Blind Pig Records); Just Let Go (1997, Blind Pig Records); Suspicion (2000, Alligator Records); Can't Look Back (2002, Alligator Records); and, Dirty Deal (2007, Alligator Records), which hits the street on January 16, 2007. It's the upcoming release of Dirty Deal that occasions the two page interview below, which took place on December 20, 2006, but we cover a lot of ground before and after broaching the subject.

No music aims more directly at the heart than the blues. Dirty Deal proves, again, that Coco Montoya is an expert marksman. Yes, he's been dealt some fine hands, but it's not the cards you're dealt that counts, it's how you play them.

Tom Watson: Let's start with how you met Albert Collins.

Coco Montoya: The first time I met him was a social thing. There was this horn player that I was playing with on the weekends in my little Top 40 gig that I played Friday and Saturday at a little club in Culver City. This great horn player, Sonny Boyer, who's since passed away, was in my Top 40 cover band. He used to play with Buddy Miles. You know, “Them Changes.”

Tom: Buddy Miles Express. Great band.

Coco: His heyday, my God. You saw the power Buddy had. And as a drummer in those days - I was a drummer then - he was my idol because I was so into the backbeat soul thing. So I met Albert going to see a Buddy Miles gig at the Whiskey A Go Go. Albert was there and he met Sonny. Sonny had also played with Albert and he used to brag about Albert Collins. Of course, none of us knew who Albert was. We had no idea. So I met him on a purely social level. I ended up at Albert's house that night, just hanging out after the gig, just drinking and having fun and hanging out with these guys. What a nice guy. It was fun, he was very gracious and stuff, but I didn't know who he was. I didn't know nothin', you know? It wasn't until the club that I was playing at in Culver City got Albert Collins to do a Sunday matinee, through Sonny I would imagine, that I had any idea who Albert was.

Tom: And they use your drum set.

Coco: They use my kit. The club owner tells Albert he can use anything he wants. He couldn't believe he had Albert. So me and the club owner got into a big hassle about it. But then Albert called me on the phone and said he would get some other drum kit. He was very sorry. He was very respectful. And I just said, "No, no. You've got it all set up. I'm not going to ruin it for you now. Go ahead, use the stuff." I said, "My argument's not with you. It's with the club owner." He said, "Come on down." So I went down there, and of course he blew my mind. It was incredible. I was never the same after that. He asked me to sit in. So I actually played two tunes with him. You know, I wasn't a blues drummer really, per se. I was playing Top 40, for crying out loud.

Tom: When you sat in with him that first night, did you know the tunes?

Coco: No, we just did a shuffle and we did a funky groove. It's one of those things, in those days. I don't think a lot of guys know how to do that anymore. Funky groove in C or whatever, and he'd give you a mouth version, and you’d go for it.

Tom: I remember those days.

Coco: It wasn't something you freaked out and said, "Oh, God. No. I don't know what to do."

Tom: Where's the chart?

Coco: I actually had a player one time, we were doing a quick improv thing, and I just said "funky tramp groove," Redding's “Tramp,” you know? And I said "Tramp" and he goes, "I don't know what to play." This guy could beat any chart in the world. This guy could do it. He's played incredible music, but he couldn't invent. It was just a mind blower to see that he couldn't go in his mind and say "Tramp" … da de lan, dun duh … you know, it should be in your head. Simple, book one. You know what I mean? Chapter one.

Tom: One night and two tunes.

Coco: Yeah, and that was it. That was great. We all went home and it wasn't until '72, I remember it being summertime, when I got the phone call. I was hanging out in my backyard. I had given Albert my number and stuff. He was desperate for a drummer.

You know, you've got to understand, it wasn't until much later when I realized pretty much he was … I mean, the drummer he had before me, I think his name was Larry Spider Daniels, was a monster player. He had all the blues stuff down. The shuffle he had would make a dead body get up and dance. That's how good he was. So I really know now that Albert was just desperate. How could he remember what I played, like, two songs the year before?

Tom: That's part of the story, but what about you? It's a great opportunity, but you don't know his sets, right?

Coco: Well, no, and naively, when he called me I said, "I'd love to." I jumped at it. It was one of those things where you're scared, but you want to touch the flame anyway. I was frightened to death. I was, like, do I run away or do I take it? It was one of those things. Confidence level was not one of my strong points. Not a highly confident boy. I say, "Great, let's rehearse." And my brain's working that quickly. I’m thinking we'll rehearse a couple of weeks, you know? He said, "Well, can you get packed up?" I said, "What?" He said, "I'm coming to get you in about three hours." At that time, I'd just barely turned 21. I'm living at home and I say, "Mom, guess what?" My buddies were outside in the backyard. We were hanging out. And I called the band that I played with on weekends, and they said, "Go." I said, "I feel really bad." They said, "Believe us, we'll get somebody for next week. It's not a big deal. Don't pass this up."

So, the next thing I know, three or four hours later, I'm cruising up I-5 [California freeway that connects Los Angeles and San Francisco] with the Albert Collins band guys who are trying to tell me how the show goes down.

Tom: You're on your way to a gig.

Coco: On my way straight to a gig.

Tom: Jeez.

Coco: They said, "You know “What's Going On” by Marvin Gaye? Well, we do it kind of funky like this. And when we tell you to break it down, you've got to get quiet." It's a very detailed thing going on. But we're not talking charts here. That definitely wouldn't have helped me, anyway, because I've never been an educated musician.

Tom: Do you recall where the first gig was?

Coco: Eugene, Oregon, at the University. And it must have been 250 maybe 300 people out there. To me it looked like …

Tom: A big concert venue…

Coco: Oh, yeah. Big stage. Huge auditorium to me. I guess now it would be like, remember when you were in elementary school and you went to those things that they had in the auditorium. It looked big. But you go there grown up now and it's just a little dinky building. You thought the thing was cavernous in your little chair and stuff. It scared the hell out of me. It was frightening but exhilarating.

Tom: How did it end up? Did you have a good time?

Coco: Well, Albert introduced me to Jack Daniels that night. I'd never had that before.

Tom: Welcome to the road, my friend.

Coco: You're damn right. He thought I was wound up, and I was scared, and I was like, "What have I gotten myself into here?" He just said, "Calm down. Come on over here with me." And we went in the little dressing room back there, and he opened his guitar case and said, "Why don't you have a little drink with me? You relax. We're going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. You're a wonderful musician and everything's going to be just fine. Just calm down, son." He said, "Here." And he got Dixie cups out, like the ones that you have in your bathroom to take some mouthwash. And he reached into his guitar kit, I'll never forget this, he pulled out a brown paper bag and he had a bottle of Jack Daniels. And I had never drank some straight whiskey like that before. So I hooked back one or two of those…

Tom: And you're ready to go.

Coco: I said, "Shit, come on. Let's go. I'm ready to play." I was on top of the world. I can still look back on that gig, and I was one of the Beatles.

Tom: You just turned 21, and you go from … Where were you living at the time?

Coco: I was living out in Mar Vista, right next to Culver City. Five minute drive to that local band gig every weekend. I could damn near walk it.

Tom: What'd your parents say about the deal?

Coco: My mother was always supportive, really supportive. A wonderful memory I have was Albert coming up to the house, and saying to her, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He always used to call her Ms. Esther. Her name was Esther, and he sat down with her and he said, "Ma'am, I'm going to take real good care of your son, and I'll make sure that he calls you twice a week." And, boy, if he came over to my room and said, "Did you call your mother?" and I said no, he’d say, "Get on the phone and call your mother right now." He'd be pissed. Oh, yeah. He loved his mother and he had lost his mother, and he’d say, "Now, you call your mother twice a week. Come over to my room and call her on my phone."

Tom: How long were you out with him on this tour?

Coco: I think we were out there for about a month and a half straight. And a hostile situation, too, because I really wasn't that savvy. I was making a lot of mistakes. I tried hard to give Albert a way out. I said, "Albert, I know you're really desperate for a player, and I really don't know your music. I'm really not that … I'm just coming into the blues. I don't know anything about it. I'd like to see you play with somebody who knows this stuff or can do this stuff really well, so I'm willing to go home. You get somebody that can stabilize this situation." And he wouldn't have any of it. He says, "You really want to learn, don't you?" I said, "Yes, but I don't want to sacrifice what you …" And he said, "No, no. You stick with me. I’m going to teach it to you. If you really want to know, I'm going to teach you. You stick with me, I'll stick with you."

Tom: You two bonded right from the beginning.

Coco: Incredibly. It was just weird. In fact, I remember the bass player, Tommy Terry, was very, very adamant. While we were shoving my gear into the U-Haul trailer behind Albert's van - I didn't even have cases. I wrapped my drums, seriously, wrapped them up - Albert was helping me. Tommy Terry was inside the van drinking, and said, "Oh, no. Montoya? That guy can't play." And I overheard. Albert looked at me and he went around and said, "Tommy, shut your mouth." He read him the riot act. So there was always a problem there, because I really wasn't on top of the gig for quite awhile. I mean, I learned. Albert taught me how to play blues drums. I didn't learn from another drummer, I learned it from him pretty much.

Tom: How would he do that?

Coco: After awhile, he would sit with me at the clubs or at sound checks - when we did sound checks. I remember doing that after the gig a couple of times, where he would just sit there and play rhythm guitar, just me and him. And he'd say, "Just feel it, so you can hear where I'm going." You're talking about two uneducated guys musically, just doing what they do. That was perfect for me, because if he would have started talking technically, I wouldn't have absorbed anything. So with him sitting there playing that wonderful rhythm of his he used to say, "Now, stop thinking. Close your eyes and just play. Listen to me, listen to where I'm going. Feel that. Yeah. Now do you feel that?" That's what he would say. He said, "Don't think about it. Feel it."

Tom: This was your Obi Wan Kenobi.

Coco: Absolutely. Without a doubt. And that's the way it came down. It was the way I learned. To this day, I know what I like, I know what I hear inside, but sometimes I can't get to it in words. I frustrate my musicians sometimes when I can't really explain it to them. I have to try and get them to absorb.

Tom: The guitar ended up much the same way. There you are. You're a left-hander, you're playing a guitar upside down. It was strung upside down to everybody else in the world, but it didn't matter. You just got the feeling on it somehow.

Coco: Yeah, that was the same thing. I started playing guitar when I was 13, as a secondary instrument. You want to make music instead of just beats, you want to hear something - the Beatles influence and everything - melodies and such. So I had an acoustic guitar when I was 13 or 14-years-old. And I beat the hell out of that. In fact, I think I invented an E chord. I didn't know what it was. I just found it. No lessons, no nothing. Never learned that. I just did it all on my own. So that was something I did secondary all the time. When I heard Eric Clapton, that was it for me. That's it. There it is. If I could play guitar, I'd want to sound like that.

Tom: Where was your guitar playing at a few years into your association with Albert Collins? Did you keep practicing?

Coco: I didn't bring the acoustic out there. The road was too rough for anything to happen to that thing. It was a piece of garbage, but it was my piece of garbage. But Albert had a couple of Teles out there, and I would sometimes take his to my room. I never thought about it at the time, but he played an open F minor and used a capo, but I would tune the thing standard, and he never complained. I tried to put it back the way I got it, but I couldn't get it and Albert would have to come over and tune it back to the way it was supposed to be. He never said a word. I'd just noodle in the hotel rooms. He used to come over, we'd sit and have a couple of drinks, and just play.

Tom: He didn't care if your guitar was upside down, he didn't care if you were right or left-handed as long as you got some feeling out of it. That's what counted.

Coco: I think that's really what it was. He made fun of me, but that was fun. He'd say, "It messes me up when I look at you playing like that. I don't know what the hell you doing." It would crack me up. He'd really bust me up. We would laugh. That's all it was. People ask, "Well, did he teach you?" And I go, "In a way he did, but it wasn't like, 'It's time for your lessons."

Tom: You just played together, basically.

Coco: We just absorbed. Any time we sat down and bullshitted around, the next thing you know we were messing around with grooves and ideas. Heck, we'd start messing around with lyrics by just tapping our foot on the floorboard of the van while we're driving. It was all done that way. It was such a magical time for me.

Tom: Did you play guitar on stage with him?

Coco: Oh, yeah, but that was later. After I did the drumming thing with Albert for awhile, I ran broke. Albert wasn't making any money. He wasn't even on a label. So we ran it as far as we could, but you know, as you get older you have responsibilities and bills. I think I was about to lose my van and I had to go get a day job, and I did.

Tom: During the mid to late '70s, you take a day job and Albert Collins does construction work. You both laid off for awhile.

Coco: Well, Albert did both. Albert used to make that run out to Austin, Texas, playing to keep himself afloat. At that time, that had just started up with Clifford Antone. I knew about it and never thought two things about it. Some of the band guys on the West Coast would get kind of pissed, but I wouldn't. The man's got to survive. He's got to do what he's got to do. Yeah, Albert would drive trucks. He'd do anything.

Tom: You've got to eat.

Coco: That was it. I hated leaving, but I couldn't survive anymore. I couldn't do it. So it was a real hard thing for me to do. Very hard. I didn't want to go, but you've got to do what you've got to do. Blues was not very popular.

Tom: Live music sort of went downhill, at least in terms of the clubs, during that period.

Coco: There was live music, but it was disco, and it was funk, which was more dance-type oriented music. Nobody was going out to see blues bands like they used to. That was the problem. I actually got to tell Dave Garibaldi of Tower of Power, I said, "You single-handedly finished me off as a drummer." Because when I came back [from playing with Albert Collins] guys were saying, "Let's go play Top 40." Things had changed and I couldn't play that kind of stuff. It just wasn't there. So basically my career as far as I knew was over. It was done. So I figured, hey, I had a run at it. I'm done. I'll go get a day job, and that's what I did. And having a day job and having money wasn't too bad.

Tom: But you're still playing guitar.

Coco: For fun. I never had a concept of actually being a guitar player. You know, “I'm going to learn how to play guitar and go out and do what Albert does.” Never thought about it that way. It was just, I've got some money so I went down with my sister to West L.A. Music and bought an Ibanez Destroyer. It felt good. Nobody was there to tell me, well, blues guys don't play rock lead guitars. I found a guitar and a Fender Super Reverb. It's a monster sounding Super Reverb. I got it for $200. Now you can't touch them for, what, 2,500 bucks? So, I got my guitar and amp and I would just go to jam sessions and start having so much fun because there was no pressure to be on a gig. There was no pressure to deal with the negative sides of the music business. And I was very, very happy for quite awhile just doing that and doing my day job. That's how all that developed. I got better as a guitar player, but it was never a goal of mine to become a musician again. I was not going to be a musician again. I wasn't in the business and I wasn't going to be.

Tom: What were you working as at that time?

Coco: The first job I had was working at a place that was selling and warehousing electric IC chips, diodes and whatever. They had a big warehouse and you'd go pick the parts and put them on a conveyer belt and someone would ship them out, working with government spec stuff. I got this job through my sister. It was very funny. I ended up being in management with a little tie on and a little desk and the whole deal. And I don't know how I got there, because I didn't know anything about what I was doing.

Tom: What musician ever lets ignorance stand in his way?

Coco: Oh, no. In spite of myself, there I was.

Tom: I know guys that if they got a call to sing opera, they'd go out and take two opera lessons.

Coco: There you go.

Tom: If they'd get paid well, they'd go out and hire somebody to teach them how to sing opera.

Coco: Give it a shot. What would they do? Fire me? Okay.

Tom: What's the worst that could happen?

Coco: They'd tell me to go away. But I did that for awhile, and then I was hitting all the jam sessions. At those times, all the blues players went to the jam sessions a lot.

Tom: The Sunday or Monday night deal.

Coco: All during the week. You'd find different ones at different places, different nights. Which is what was great about this day job, I didn't have to be there until 9:30, so I could be out all night. At that time, I sure loved my drink, so I was having a really good time just running out and jamming. In fact, I had a club owner 86 me because I wouldn't join the house band. But I told him, "I don't want to be responsible. I just want to come out here and jam and have fun, get drunk, play or not play." That's how that went.

Tom: But, God's about to deal you another lucky hand.

Coco: Yeah. Unbeknownst to me. That was strange, and this is the craziest thing about it: Sometimes there's guilt. The two incredible events in my life, the two people that really shaped my career or just the direction of my life, Albert Collins and John Mayall, I didn't seek them out. It just happened.

Tom: I'm looking at the new album’s title, Dirty Deal, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, this guy's had some good hands.

Coco: I've been very, very blessed.

Tom: Tell me, in a nutshell, the Mayall story.

Coco: It's very hilarious. The thing I remembered that I've never even really told anybody is that I met John Mayall previous to the main story. The guy that used to put on the jam session at the Central Club in Hollywood, Keith Robertson, he used to be a roadie and he roadied for John and quite a few people. He used to run the jam sessions every Tuesday night. We became very good friends. And, of course, that was my place, every Tuesday night I’d go down there and jam.

Tom: The Central Club is the Viper Room now, right?

Coco: It's the Viper Room now, Johnny Depp’s place. Back then it was an incredible thing, a magical thing you'll probably not see again. That place was before the China Club or any of that stuff. You would see on stage nobodies with big stars. The big stars would come down, get drunk, act a fool. I mean, I got to play with Phil Collins, David Lindley, Rod Stewart. I played with Eric Burdon. All these people used to come in. That's where John Belushi was hanging out around the time he passed away. That was where he was every time he came to L.A. He would hang out at the Central, and he would get up and jam and play blues. He even flew his high school buddies in there one time to play. Pretty amazing situation, amazing time. But that was what we were doing every Tuesday night, hanging out and having a ball. I mean, Joe Perry used to come out and play, and there wasn't any Aerosmith anymore. That's where I met Richie Hayward from Little Feat.

Tom: I didn't know you met him back then.

Coco: I met all those guys. I used to play $25 gigs. Me and Richie would play these $25 or $30 gigs down in Venice, California, like in '79. I met Richie, 'cause they used to come up to that jam. He was having a hard, hard time. There was no Little Feat, and he was trying to clean his life up. He was great. That's how it would get. I mean, we laugh about it now, but we'd go down and play this gig with a pass-the-hat thing, and we'd be guaranteed 25 bucks a piece.

Tom: The Central and Keith Robertson create the John Mayall connection.

Coco: That was the place. Keith called me up one day and goes, "Hey, I've got this Yamaha." They used to have those big old heavy Yamaha digital pianos or whatever they were. It was like this acoustic-electric thing. They were heavy, but you could take it apart and transport it. He says, "Well, it's John's, the one in the club, and I've got to take it back out to him, he wants to use it for some rehearsals for the Bluesbreakers. Would you help me?" I said, "Yeah. I'll try to help you." So we took it up there, and I basically met John in his living room, delivering this piano in his house. I wasn't there more than, what, 20 minutes? Basically, I was just, "I'm Coco Montoya, guitar player. How are you doing?" That was our first meeting.

One day, a little later, Keith says, "Guess what? John's rehearsing down at the club during the day." Of course, he’s one of my idols, so I say, "Can I just sit and watch?" Me and a buddy went up there and watched their rehearsals. It's just weird how all that seemed to be a continuing connection. But, it wasn't until, I guess it probably was '83, somewhere around '83, where he came into the club while I was jamming. And that's where the Mayall story usually starts, where I had heard it was his birthday and I dedicated a bastardized version of “All Your Love”, the Otis Rush song, to John. Apparently, the guy running the board made a copy, a cassette copy of what we did, a board mix, and gave it to John because John wanted it.

Tom: That's the second amazing Coco Montoya story.

Coco: It's phenomenal. Then Mick Taylor left to go join the Bob Dylan tour, and John called me, and that was kind of the way it went down. In fact, like I say when telling this story, I hung up on him.

Tom: You hung up on him?

Coco: Well, I didn't believe it. At that point, I was working at a British club in Laurel Canyon. Everybody used to go to it. It was owned by a guy who I used to play with - Ken Gardner of Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke. He owned it. So he knew everybody. I mean, the Rolling Stones and everybody else was in that bar, everybody. They all knew him. And they would go out there because it was a very British pub thing. And John called me, and I thought it was one of those guys…

Tom: Playing a joke.

Coco: Yeah. Because they knew I was the blues fanatic over there, you know? And I thought it was somebody playing a joke. So I was just, "Yeah, yeah. And I'm Eric Clapton." And I hung up on him.

Tom: He called back.

Coco: He called back and said, "No, no. This really is John Mayall."

Tom: You're a hard sell.

Coco: I said, "It's for real then?" He goes, "Oh, yes. Yes. Mick Taylor's gone off, and I'm regrouping a new Bluesbreakers. I have a tape of you here, and I'd like to know if you'd like to come down. We're going to audition some drummers, and if you want to be a part of this…"

Tom: Did you ask him if he was going to pick you up in three hours?

Coco: Actually, it was a few days later, but it was whirlwind, too. I went up there and I helped him audition drummers. We ended up with a bass player and a drummer. We rehearsed for two days and went to Italy on tour - boom. In that two days, we rehearsed the songs, took promo photographs in his backyard, and basically got everything together. The following week, we went to Italy. He said, "Here's the cassettes of all the songs." It went, "Okay, we got the arrangement down? Everybody got it. Okay, let's play it." And I would record it. "Okay, here's your homework tape. This is the arrangement. So if you do your homework, we'll be okay."

Tom: At least we'll have a shot.

Coco: Yeah, basically a shot at it. Suddenly, I found myself for the first time on a plane going to Europe.

Tom: Had you been to Europe before?

Coco: Never. Never. In fact, I don't think I had ever been on a plane. It was frightening. It was exciting, but frightening, once again. And the first thing we do is a huge television program with Jimmy Cliff. We're in a big studio with a bunch of people. They've got cameras flying all over the place. I couldn't believe it.

Tom: What kind of guy was John Mayall to you?

Coco: Different, very different. I went from a very emotional thing with Albert ..

Tom: Personal, emotional.

Coco: Everything was based on emotion. Everything. The things I went through with Albert I thought were horrible, some of them, but they were a blessing because I got to see what his life was like. I got to see how he got treated. I learned some stuff that was very frightening. And everything was on an emotional basis. John Mayall? Organization. Something Albert never had. John was real organized, which I liked. It was, like, 10:00 we leave in the morning. You're in the lobby with your business done, ready to go. And I liked that. No matter how much drinking I did or whatever, to me 5 minutes ahead of the time is on time. John was very, very rigid about all these things like that. This is how it goes. He was very rigid about time on stage. "Oh, 90 minute concert? We're perfect. We'll give them an encore and that's it." And we'd go, "God, John. They're going crazy. We want to play more." I think watching John was just … very British and sometimes a little uptight.

Tom: Formal, maybe?

Coco: Stiff upper lip, don't let the emotions get out kind of thing. We ended up with Joey Whaley on drums, who's still there and doing great. Walter Trout, eventually, too. He came in a year later. But we were all fairly coming from a very emotional side of it. We were all American musicians, and we were well-versed in the blues thing, so all our stuff was very emotional. I think John learned something from these players that I don't think he had that with the British guys. I really don't. I think it was, "Okay. Time for me to go now, John. I have to leave. I've got another gig. Okay?” “Well, jeez, you're screwing me over.” “Yes, I am. I'll talk to you later." But, with us, it would be, like, "No, John. I'm there for you.” On an emotional level, I think he learned.

Tom: Did Mayall try to shape your playing or influence it?

Coco: You've got to remember, when you get into that band, it's euphoric. I figured, three or four months with him and I'm in the record books. I was a Bluesbreaker. That's what I was thinking in my head. I didn't think I could last. Figured I'd get found out that I really couldn't play that well, that I'd get busted sooner or later and he'd bring somebody else in. I just wanted to get the chair long enough to get in the book.

Tom: Keep the tie in the drawer.

Coco: Yeah. Don't burn any bridges back there. But it was one of those things where you get really excited, you do the first tour, and then it hits you. It's a real pressure because this band is so famous, especially for its guitar players. And then the ghosts start coming out. You've also got a guy like Kal David [the second guitarist when Montoya joined the Bluesbreakers] on the other end of the stage, or you've got Walter Trout on the other end of the stage. So, not only do you have the guy that's in front of you that's going to play his ass off, you also have the ghosts of guitarists past.

Tom: And you've got a lot of blues fans that are hypercritical.

Coco: Oh, I had an Italian guy take a swing at me because he was very disappointed that I wasn't Mick Taylor. He was coming to see Mick Taylor. That's how he found out Mick wasn't doing the gig anymore. "You no Mick Taylor," and took a swing at me.

Tom: That is a lot of pressure. You've got the guys from the past…

Coco: And you've got who's there now.

Tom: And the fact that there must be a couple thousand guitar players in the world that would give their eyeteeth for that job.

Coco: Absolutely. Obviously, you would attract all these players. And you could see them in front with their arms folded, "Yeah, I could do that." Or, "That's a Peter Green lick." And at the beginning, that was the other thing, which I think is brilliant about John, which was noticing that I was trying so hard to imitate these guys. I was taking all my Clapton, things that I used to play just like Eric, and the things that I loved about Peter Green and the things that I loved about Mick Taylor and trying to do them. Whenever we did a song that Mick did with him, I would start playing that. And John took me aside and gave me a good talking to. He said, "Hey. You know what? I didn't bring you out here to be a mimic." I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "You're trying to play the song lick for lick. I don't want that in my band. Eric's not here tonight. You are. When we do 'Have You Heard' or when we do 'Little Girl', I want you to play it your way. That's what I hired you for." He said, "You know, don't think that I want your best. Eric. That was then. I don't want you thinking that way. I want you to start making these songs your own."

Tom: I think, in the final analysis, that's how you were able to spend 10 years with him.

Coco: Absolutely. He freed me up from that by saying, "That's not what I want you to do, that'll kill you, that's not what you want to do here."

Tom: And he doesn't want to do covers of his own songs.

Coco: He's already got to do them, so he wants to make sure that they've got something new in them. Eventually, there was no doubt about the Clapton influence in my playing, I mean, it's there. It's obvious to me, along with the Albert Collins influence. If you want to know the two big influences that I've got, they're those. It's all there.

Tom: How many electric blues guitar players haven't been influenced by those two?

Coco: Exactly. But it's like what Albert Collins used to always tell me. He said, "Son, I love Guitar Slim. He was my idol. I love T-Bone. B.B.? He's like my big brother. I love those guys. But I never want to be them. I want to find my own identity. That's what you've got to do in this world, find your own identity." Like the first time I did one of his tunes, he said, "Well, don't do it like that. You're doing it just like I do it." For example, I did “Got A Mind to Travel” as a slow blues at first. He goes, "No, no. Try something different. Try it as a shuffle." So we ended up trying it as a shuffle, and that's on my first album, Gotta Mind to Travel.

Tom: There's another lucky deal for you. Your two major influences have both encouraged you to find your own voice.

Coco: Exactly. And that's the brilliance of John Mayall. He's just a wonderful, knowledgeable man. A great musician and an incredible player? No. He'd be the first one to tell you, "I just have me a good old time." We’d listen to Little Walter stuff and I’d say, "I love this. Try to learn how to play like that." He’d go, "I can't play like that." John does what John does, and that's what's brilliant about it.

Tom: And that's what's honest about it. Some folks talk about the blues like it's Vivaldi. This is feel good, feel bad, but feel something music.

Coco: Exactly. It's simplicity at its best. Like Albert used to say, "They tell me my music is simple, but I say the simplest music is the hardest to play." And that's absolutely true. I'm constantly saying "slow down" to myself. Slow down, simplify. You're overdoing it. You're over thinking it. Relax. I have to do that to myself.

Tom: Everybody does. Go to the major guitar schools and one of the first things they're going to do is make you sit down and deliver a simple melody in a convincing manner.

Coco: Right. Simple. Relax. Don't even think. Just relax. That's the magic key right there.

Tom: You're with John Mayall for more or less 10 years.

Coco: Just shy of 10 years.

Tom: How did your vocals come along?

Coco: Gosh, with Albert I used to sing backup. In my Top 40 gig, I used to have to warble one or two. But it just came along. Once again, which is very boring but true, nothing was ever thought out. It just is. It just was. It just came out that way.

Tom: Or necessity.

Coco: Yeah. It just developed with, once again, no thought in mind. I didn't go, "Well, I've got to develop my voice, I've got to sing." I liked it. I did it. It just happened.

Tom: The 10-year period you're with Mayall, are you practicing your vocals on the side? Are you starting to open some of the shows?

Coco: Before the Bluesbreakers I had already done little things where I had been singing. I had been going to the jams or helping some band out. Get a call from Keith to go in tonight, I'd go down there and play in bands at night. Of course, whatever I got my hands on, and any blues tunes I knew. Some Albert stuff I would sing. So I was already singing.

Later, it eventually came to a thing where me and Kal David, we posed to John, have you ever done the traditional blues format? He goes, "What do you mean?" I go, "We go out, we do a song or two, and we bring you out on one of your tunes." I think at that point, he had never, ever done that, like you would see at an Albert King show, where the excitement gets built up because the star isn't out there yet. You build it up for him, just working the crowd. I still think that's incredible. Then when John would come out, people would go nuts with anticipation.

So we tried it out, and for a long time that's what we would do, even into the Walter Trout era for awhile we would have John wait. Either Walter would open with a song … we'd alternate, or I'd open. Same thing with Kal David. Then we also had where, okay, you open the show and I'll do a song in the middle of the show. Then we reversed it the next time. All these little things like that were just a lot of fun to do with John. I think it brought a whole new thing that I don't think he ever really experienced until he was with us.

Then he became very fatherly. He discovered how much I held Eric Clapton up on a pedestal. I was so much into Eric Clapton. I never met the man, never did, but when we had idle time John would tell me these stories. I was like a little kid at a campfire. “Well, when Eric did this and Eric did that.” He'd tell me all this stuff, which gave me an insight as to how it all went down. I was a very, very, interested kid.

Tom: You're getting to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Coco: Just phenomenal. It was about how Eric could be so arrogant. But he had no competition. There was nobody around doing anything near what he was doing.

Tom: What led up to you going it on your own? Was that 1993?

Coco: Yeah, '93.

Tom: That’s the year Albert Collins passed away, isn't it?

Coco: Yes, it is.

Tom: Was there an influence there?

Coco: That had a very profound effect on me. It was part of the whole deal. A lot of people try to use that as the hook in any story, me saying that Albert told me to quit, so I quit. He said, "You know, John's been good to you. I know he's a good man and he's been good to you, but son, you shouldn't wait any longer. It's time for you to go and do your own thing." He goes, "I don't want you to wait anymore." But, by that time I'd already been thinking that it was time for me to move on because over the years things started to evolve. Walter had left the band. I was the only guitar player. We started out having Sugarcane Harris come in, John Sugarcane Harris, which was wonderful. But he never showed up. We rehearsed, took pictures of the band, then went to the airport and he never showed up. So that's how I ended up being the only guitar player. The band was evolving. It was changing, things were changing. I think we brought in Sonny Landreth for one of the albums. That's when the slide was getting played. That wasn't one of my strong points. I'm not that diverse of a player.

So it was just natural. It just seemed to be, you know what? It's time. It's time because there are other things that John needs that I'm not going to be able to do for him. And it was time for me. I had songs in my head. I had written a few songs. It was just a natural progression, I think. Just time to do it.

I talked to John about it, and we had a … I think it was in Hong Kong where we kind of had a backstage row about something. The band boys told him something and tried to get me in on it, a mutiny. I just kind of said, "You know what? I don't want to get involved in all this." That's when I told John, "You know, John, it's time for me to go." And John looked at me and goes, "Well, maybe it is time for you to do your own thing." And we talked about it, and I said, "I don't want to get this all in a huff or anything. I want to do this right. You've been really good to me." And we worked it out fine. In fact, when we talked about it I said, "John, how about that kid in Texas? Buddy Whittington? I think he's great." He goes, "Yeah, I just pulled that out the other day. I'm going to give him a call." I go, "That's the guy, John, because Buddy plays everything." Buddy plays all the tunings, slide, you name it. Acoustic. He plays it all. And he's brilliant at it. He's very, very good. So, it was the right thing to do. With Albert's nudging and John's nudging, it was a good thing. He was nudging me out of the nest, as they say.

Tom: You shouldn't keep writing the same chapter over and over.

Coco: You know, it was really hard because you do these things and you realize that I don't want to get to the place where I’m just doing it for the money because John deserves better than that. And that's really what that was all about for me. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t disrespect this man in that way. He'd been wonderful to me, and I appreciated that, but now it's time for me to open my own store and grow up.

Tom: Like you said, it's time to leave the nest.

Coco: It's time to leave the nest. And it was time for me to either continue as a musician or not, because when I left, I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know if I had the guts to open up my own band, to take on the responsibility. First of all, I had to quit drinking. I had to quit drugging and drinking, which became quite evident to me. It took a long time for me to understand that, but I had to.

Tom: You didn't have concrete plans at that point.

Coco: No, not at all. No game plan. This is really scary, if you think about it.

Tom: Yes, but a lack of planning seems to work for you, Coco.

Coco: I guess. Numbnuts over here, just really not together. I'm just, like, "What am I going to do now? How long will the money last? I've got to go get a job." That's what I'm thinking. I've got to go get a job.

Tom: I wonder if I still have that tie?

Coco: Yeah. You think they'll have me back? It's phenomenal how you get yourself thinking about all of this stuff.

Tom: You released your first album in '95. That's not long, '93 to '95. You got the act together pretty quickly.

Coco: Actually, that album, my first album, was something that happened with this great buddy of mine. I used to be in a band with him and he played bass and we had this little band for a short while and we stayed really tight friends. His name is Albert Molinaro, and he ended up opening a guitar store in Hollywood. It was called Guitars 'R Us. It became world famous. He was right across the street from the Guitar Center there [Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles]. George Harrison, Dylan, everybody used to go into his place. He called me up and said, "Look, I want to do an album. I've never done one. I want to produce an album." I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, I'm going to do it on you, you big fat lummox." And I go, "What?" He goes, "You're going to be my subject. I'll take care of everything. I'll work deals." He's got all this gear, all these guitars, all these amps, and he rents them out to studios, and he would work deals. So we started that around '89. Probably around '89 … '88 or '89, I think. We started going in whenever we could, whatever studio - and killer studios. We could only get in there sometimes at 1:00 in the morning.

It was really cool. He bartered a lot of deals. A lot of friends and people helped him out. He says, "Hey, we'll do the whole thing. If we can sell it and I can get my money back, great." So I took him up on it and we called all our favors in. Of course, Albert played and John played on it. And Debbie Davies was all over it. Albert played bass, Joey Whaley on drums. We hired Mike Finnegan who got in on some of the stuff.

Then Al Kooper came in. That was incredible. Al Kooper walks in and Albert Molinaro says, "Hey, Al. How you doing?" Kooper was all, "Yeah. I'm in town. Just dropped by to see what's going on." We were doing “Someday After Awhile”, a Freddie King song. He was listening and and goes, "Hey, Coco? This thing really needs some B3 on it." I said, "God, well, yeah. You're a keyboard player. You got a B3?" And he uncovered one in the back and fired it up. Thank God it worked. Al cut the track and it was like, shit, "What do I owe you, man?" I was thinking it was going to be one of the charges. Al looks at me and he goes, "I'm hungry." I took him to dinner. Al Kooper played on my album and all I had to do was take him to dinner. I will always love him for that.

Tom: When did you finish the album?

Coco: I think we were done with that album around about '92 … '91 or '92. We ended up talking with the label that John Mayall had. I think it was Zomba Jive. Or Silvertone? Wasn't it Silvertone?

Tom: Silvertone.

Coco: Yeah. The Scandinavian guys that were the main instigators of all this went nuts for what I had. So I said, "Shit. I'm on Silvertone. Great." That's when you learn that being on a big label is not always the greatest thing. So they were excited about it but London and New York wanted nothing to do with it. We just fell through the cracks.

Tom: Blind Pig picked it up, didn't they?

Coco: Yeah. And we did really well with that. I offered it to Bruce [Bruce Iglauer, Alligator Records] first, but he turned it down.

Tom: Really?

Coco: Yeah. I offered it to him. Me and my manager, which was Albert Collins' manager, he took me on after Albert died, which I'm very grateful for. I said, "We'll go to Bruce first." But, Bruce said, "No, I think this is terrible. I think you're doing yourself a disservice by putting this out." Well, I go, "I'm going to put it out because Albert's all over it and it's got a lot of love."

Tom: Bruce Iglauer picks you up in 2000, right?

Coco: Yeah. He ended up picking us up. It was just one of those introductions to Bruce.

Tom: He's his own kind of guy.

Coco: He is his own kind of guy. You can't argue with success, but he is his own fella and sometimes you don't understand where he's coming from. Then I went to Blind Pig and we did three albums with them, then we moved over to Alligator. That's where we've been since.

Tom: So now you're on Alligator from 2000. Dirty Deal is your third Alligator album.

Coco: Yes.

Tom: Alligator was also Albert Collins' label. Who's your manager?

Coco: John Boncimino of MB Management is my manager. He's also Keb Mo's manager.

Tom: Your connection with Albert Collins is such a big part of your life.

Coco: It's huge. Not only musically, but on a personal level too. He was like my second father. He was like a father to me. We did father-son time.

Tom: Through all the years.

Coco: All through the years. I would go see him … I lived on his couch there for about a month or so. He was like my dad. When I got done with the John Mayall tour sometimes, I had nothing going on at home at the time, I'd just call him up and find out "Where's he at?" "Well, he's in Cleveland." I'd pack me up a guitar, pack me up a suitcase, wash my clothes, bag it up, and go out there just to be with him. He always said, "Well, I've got to pay you." I’d go, "I don't care. Just whatever." I'm here to hang out with Albert. That was me. You didn't have to pay me shit. I just wanted to hang out. I just wanted to hang with my dad, that's all.

Tom: Just be with the man.

Coco: That's all I wanted, and that's what I would do. Sometimes they'd say, "Gosh, you just got off the road with John for two months and now you're going out with Albert for another three weeks." Well, I wanted to hang with him. I'd just sit back there and play rhythm guitar. Then I started getting a name for myself with John, and people would be, like, "Look, it's Coco Montoya back there. What're you doing?" And I'd go, "Just hanging with my dad." It was so much fun not to be the focus, not to be playing lead guitar all the time. Right then I went, "Now I know what Eric was talking about." Now I experienced what Eric … Eric used to do all these shows and people would say, "Is that Eric Clapton sitting in the back playing rhythm?"

Tom: Relaxing.

Coco: Yeah. I can play lead guitar, I mean every time I have to go do my gig, I've got to play the guitar all day, all night, all year, and I’m having a ball making music with these musicians, so to play around with rhythm stuff is fun.

Tom: You said you'd seen Albert Collins deal with some really ugly stuff. Were you talking about prejudice?

Coco: Sure. Prejudice on many levels - on the average day-to-day stuff and in the business. I'm not afraid to say that. I would go do a gig with John Mayall at a certain place and get treated a certain way and come back a few months later playing with Albert, and it's a whole 'nother game.

Tom: Even in the late '80s?

Coco: Oh, yeah. Well into the '80s, yeah. I'd play a place with John Mayall and they'd be all, "Hey, John. Whatever you need, anything you want." Go back there and play with Albert, and there's a goddamn ice tray with a few beers in it and a pitcher of fountain Coca-Cola, you know? It used to piss me off.

I remember one time with Johnny Clyde Copeland … like I told you, in my day I used to drink quite a bit, and I just remember being upset because we had all this food, and I'm sure they had riders too that were probably rejected, but we had three buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, deli trays, two bottles of Jack Daniels, a bottle of wine, a bottle of vodka, all this stuff, hot coffee, hot water for tea, tea bags everywhere. And I remember Johnny's drummer came by and went, "Man, I've got a cold so bad." I said, "You got bottles and tea." And he goes, "We ain't got shit over there." And I went over and there's Johnny sitting in the chair, man, and there's a tray of melted ice with a few beers in it. I got so pissed off, and it probably wasn't a good idea, and I went over to ours, I grabbed a bucket of chicken … I started grabbing shit and taking it over there. And to the promoter, I go, "You're a fuckin' asshole." He goes, "What do you mean?" I said, "How could you treat … this is Johnny Clyde Copeland sitting here, man. How could you treat this man like this?" I said, "These guys are hungry. This guy's got a cold, and they just want some freakin' tea. You should be ashamed of yourself." And John [Mayall] had to go over and get me, and of course I was embarrassing Johnny, which I did on a few occasions.

Tom: How would Albert react to these situations?

Coco: Well, there's a very famous one on that. When I was young and playing drums for him, we were driving down south. We had a weird gig. We were doing a gig out in Mississippi somewhere - it might've been Jackson or something. The details are kind of cloudy but I remember the incident. We started getting a bad tire when we pulled into town. Albert stopped short and said, "Pull up in that gas station to get that tire fixed." I said, "Me?" He said, "Yeah, you get up in front of me to get the tire fixed." Albert went and sat in the back. I was the only non-black in the band. We pulled up and out comes Bubba and looks at it, and I said, "Yeah, I need to get that tire fixed on the rear over there, passenger rear." "Well, I can do it for you," he goes. He yells back at some other guy and says, "Come on out here. Yeah. This man's got a band full of niggers, gotta get on down to Jackson." And I'm young, I don't take no shit from nobody. I said, "What the …" I decided to get out. Albert pinched my side and he looked at me and shook his head and said, "Calm down, son. Be cool." My eyes started watering. I said, "Did you hear what he said?" He said, "I heard what he said. Sometimes it's just like that." And I was fuming. I felt so helpless, I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, but I'd never heard nobody do that. It just freaked me completely. I didn't know how to handle it, what to do about it. I just felt helpless.

And there he was, dealing with that shit, driving all these miles, and he'd still get up there and get a standing ovation or get a second encore out of nothin'. He would make it. He had this inner strength that, still, to this day, I don't know if I could find. Every time. It was incredible. It's amazing, when you hear these stories of these guys [musicians] having an attitude and getting kind of funky. Well, you know, it may not be right, but there's a reason for it. And I got to witness that stuff, and there was a long time where it haunted me. I talked to Albert about it. I said, "You know, it's turned into a blessing, Pop, because now I know." He said, "Now you know. You've seen it for yourself." For him to go through life like that and turn out to be the most wonderful, giving human being that he was … it was a miracle.

Tom: Tells you something about him.

Coco: Yeah. How do you come out of the Third Ward in Houston and be the wonderful, gracious man that he is? That's amazing. It's phenomenal. He was a very, very wonderful human being.

Tom: April 4, 1968, I’m the only white guy in this big soul band - three singers in front, horn section, the whole bit. It's the night Martin Luther King was shot and we're playing at an all-black roller rink, probably somewhere over in Illinois. Everything's cool but state troopers come and escort me out "for my own protection". I guess so many years of stupid racism cut a big path.

Coco: Oh, Jesus. Unbelievable.

Tom: There's a tendency to gloss over the underbelly of the '60s and '70s. I'm living with my parents in a white neighborhood. I have to climb out the back window because black guys in Cadillacs are picking me up at 9 or 10 at night to play gigs. Cops with submachine guns patrol the streets in case of race riots, but San Francisco, Woodstock, and flower power get the attention.

Coco: You know. You've witnessed this. And it's like, they're not lying. That stuff was there.

Tom: Exactly. And I think it gives people a whole different perspective. We should all live as a minority somewhere, somehow, sometime to understand what this world's about.

Coco: Absolutely. I mean, I had my own experiences when I was a little boy, you know, though I didn't understand it at the time. It was later in life when I realized that some people didn't like me because I was a little Mexican boy. I always wondered why I never got to go to the kid's house down the street. I was always told to stay outside. I could never go in their house. I remember one lady used to tell me, "I don't want you playing with my boy anymore." And I never understood why. It's just weird things like that. But Albert, I mean, what I’ve experienced is nowhere on the level like what I saw him go through.

Tom: Been a long road. You're 55.

Coco: Yeah.

Tom: How do you keep taking the next step?

Coco: It ain't easy. It ain't easy at all. It's getting harder and harder, but it's what I do. I don't know anything else. That's the other thing. I'm an uneducated guy. I didn't make it past the 10th grade. I used to be ashamed of that. I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

Tom: It is what it is.

Coco: It is what it is. There's a writer named Art Tipaldi, wonderful guy. He actually teaches Blues 101 in the school that he teaches at. He has a blues class. I think it's wonderful. B.B.'s done it, I've done it, Debbie Davies has done it. Who else? Duke Robillard. We've all gone down there to try and talk to these kids and stuff. One thing I stress is, "Hey, kids. Don't do what I did because if I should lose a finger, it's not like I can go …"

Tom: Coco, if you lost a finger, you'd play more slide.

Coco: Yeah, but something could happen where I would have a stroke or whatever, and it's like there is nothing for me to fall back on. I mean, I'm in a bar scrubbing a countertop again. That's just it. And I try and tell these kids, because not everybody can make it up the fish ladder. I look at this business as a fish ladder. There's some big, beautiful fish trying to jump up this ladder, and not all of them are going to make it.

Tom: Few do. We've got to get to Dirty Deal, but before we talk about Dirty Deal…

Coco: Oh, to hell with that album. I'm about sick of the damn thing. [Laughs] Just kidding.

Tom: I spend time writing about music from a little farming village in Portugal, but I was lucky that I grew up playing in clubs and concerts. I have a sense of place. I understand where the music comes from, I have some context. But, many people coming up today are experiencing music at home through machines, what are they going to do? When they hear your album again 20 years from now, they're going to think about the operating system they had on their computer the first time they heard the music? We're losing a sense of place. If you wanted to give a place to your music, what place would it be?

Coco: You know, I'll tell you something. I don't think there's any one place, because I think as a player, and especially in this genre of music, you're grateful to be playing anywhere. You are. You're grateful to be playing anywhere. Every night that I get to play, this is my mantra. I just say, "I am so grateful that I have this gig tonight in this little 100-seater, 50-seater, whatever, any little bar with people and some guy drunk puking on his shoes over there. I am so glad I have this gig. Anywhere they'll listen.” That's why the question usually is, "What do you like, the big concert stage with 40,000 people out there, or do you like the intimate 150 people in a little wooden club somewhere in the corner with the snow falling on the outside?" I go, "I'll take them all." I'll take them all, because that's the nature of this business. You don't have the luxury of even thinking that way. You're just grateful to have a place to do it.
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