Also in the Sherman Herald Democrat, www.heralddemocrat.com

Monte Montgomery

By Mary Jane Farmer

Seat belts or guy wires, that’s all the equipment it takes to stay grounded while at a Monte Montgomery concert. The acoustic guitar picker quite figuratively, like the Fred Eaglesmith song says, “blows the town away.”

Monte and his Alvarez guitar, not to mention the band on whom he completely relies, have traveled around the world and are well known statewide. His amazing picking, pelting the electrified guitar with a unique combination of finger picking and pick-picking, works as his left leg keeps rhythm and his hands work every inch of six strings, in pick-and-pop style. Together, it is seemingly impossible for someone, even the most proficient guitarists in the audience, to fully grasp just what all is going on on top of that simple brown guitar.

Alvarez guitars are handmade. The music at a Monte Montgomery concert is also handmade — hand made by Montgomery like no one else can.

Monte said he grew up surrounded by music. His earlier years were spent at his father’s house in Alabama. His dad wasn’t a musician, but was a church’s choir director who had an “awesome record collection, stuff like Paul Simon and the Coasters,” Monte said. “He took me to gospel quartet concerts. We’d get in the truck and head out.”

During those years, Monte said, he was addicted to the radio. “Every Sunday, I would literally sit down and listen to top gospel, writing down every song.” Monte said he had no musical instruments at his disposal during those years. But, when he spent time with his Texas Hill Country mother, Maggie Montgomery, he became more hands-on with a guitar. “My earliest memories were sitting on her lap, literally strumming her guitar while she hit the chords.”

Somewhere in those early years, Monte picked up a trombone and learned to play it. Later, after he began living with his mom, a regular feature at Luckenbach, he said they came upon some hard financial times. “Me and my mom, we were hard up for cash, so we pawned the trombone. We never got it back out of hock. So, I picked up the guitar. Otherwise, I’d probably would have been a horn player today.”

Montgomery has appeared on the covers of “Frets” and “Acoustic Guitar” magazines. He was named to “Guitar Player Magazine’s” top 50 greatest guitarists of all times. He’s appeared on television’s “Austin City Limits,” and been described in countless articles as the Evel Knievel of guitar, six strings attached to dynamite, and the acoustic shred master. He’s been awarded the honor of “Best Acoustic Guitar Player” for several consecutive years at the Austin Music Awards.

But he is probably one of the most down-to-earth musicians on the planet. His sense of humor on stage and his interaction with fans, both onstage and off make his audiences feel more like old friends.

The man sings, too. And he records.

Live performing began at the same time as his self-taught guitar talent, after he moved from his Alabama home to Texas. He was 12 then and from then on a regular among the nightly impromptu music jams around the Luckenbach general store and its rustic perimeters. Monte lists among his influences many of the usual famous suspects: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Lee, and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham. But, he recalls, he also watched all those players who jammed out with Maggie at Luckenbach. He mentioned Kimbo Keating, who he called “a master of anything on strings.”

There was Greg Chesher and Lee McCulloch. “Whenever I played songs with them, I would just pick up stuff from them. I learned through osmosis.” He spent his high school years, not going to high school, but hanging out and playing guitar. “More and more, I got to the point where I could hear something on the radio and teach it to myself. That’s how I learned,” Monte said.

Now, he runs into pickers who pick up licks from him. “They listen to me, and they have gone on to pursue music and to do what I do.” He talked about an Austin picker, Gary Cox, who has been watching, learning by osmosis, from Montgomery for years. “He has the same (Alvarez) guitar that I do. I’m always happy to talk with them musically. I get asked to give lessons, which I don’t do now. There’s not enough time, but down the road, I might consider it.”

Touring keeps Montgomery busy, and yet also keeps him from hearing a lot of live music on his own. What he has noticed, he said, is that Austin pickers — and those are the ones he knows best, since Austin is his own — are everywhere. “I see, no matter where I tour, I always see flyers and posters, line-ups always include bands coming out of Austin, Texas. I’ll be in Germany or Italy, and I’ll see them. Even if I don’t see flyers, I am hanging out with people who are familiar with Austin music. It makes incredible sense. Nobody plays music like those from Texas.”

“You can get pretty much any musician you want out of here, (Austin and Texas) and I think that says a lot. Austin is Nashville without the pretense. It’s more of an artists’ town, Nashville is more about business. People in Austin are not really caught up in all that. All they are really interested in is playing their music, and that spins from the artist standpoint. I’ve never wanted to move to Nashville or New York. I like the speed of Austin, its kind of mellow and exciting.”

Trying to put Montgomery’s music into a jar labeled with a specific genre or style is not a simple task. When asked what kind of music he plays, Monte said he always answers “by saying it’s up to the listeners to put it in a genre. There’s a need to have music categorized. And that’s been a question posed to me by major record labels. They like what I do, but are confused on how to label that. So they pass. I take that as a compliment, that I’m doing my own thing, and that’s good enough for me.”

Montgomery and his band are playing on the outdoor patio at T-Bones Bar & Grill in Denison, with Jason Elmore & Hoodoo Witch opening, Thursday night.

Monte Montgomery and Jason Elmore