Happy Blue Year

To many in these parts, particularly those deaf to the blues, harmonica-playing singer James Montgomery will not be a familiar name. Yet the Detroit native, who moved to Boston in the late '60s — and built his name in the northeast, headlining shows above Aerosmith and J. Geils — toured with many of the greats, from Bruce Springsteen and the Allman Brothers to B.B. King and Buddy Guy. 

Too overshadowed by the sound of young America, it's easy to forget that Detroit has a rich blues history. Unlike Chicago, we don't ram it down people's throats with theme restaurants and such nonsense. No, Detroit blues is understated and beautiful, attributes once portrayed perfectly by John Lee Hooker. And so it was that back in 1966, 15-year-old James Montgomery saw his first jug band play and it, he says, "struck a chord."

"It was the first time I ever saw a band play live blues. There was a harmonica player, in fact two, and it was the first time I saw live blues with harmonica. At the Chessmate, anyone could go because it was all-ages. This was around '66. Detroit had a great blues scene back then, and, of course, it was only three hours out from Chicago. At the Chessmate you could go in and catch a Muddy Waters set and then see the backstage shows. They'd have jams in the dressing rooms with John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, James Cotton — it was just a really great time to grow up in Detroit." 

Today, one can only imagine. As the young Montgomery made blues his life, he got to know Hooker, becoming friendly with the legend. "The last conversation I had with John Lee was about a month before he died. He said, 'Montgomery, I finally got what I deserved.' To hear a blues guy say that he was appreciated and got what he deserved before he died is rare. There's only about five or six of them that could say that." 

When Montgomery speaks of his Detroit blues upbringing, it's tinged with affection and nostalgia — but he hastily admits that making his home in Boston as the '60s became the '70s was a smart career move.

"I still sell a lot of tickets in the Northeast," says one of the few blues artists ever to land multiple major label record deals. "It's such a different market; there's a lot of blues and jazz people out here. You can play one night in Boston, the next night Portland — there are so many big shows you can play. I'm not sure that's true in Detroit. This is a really great place to base a blues career, because there's always work. I've had Jimmy McCarty as my guitar player, and when he left I replaced him with Wayne Kramer. If you ask the trivia question, what band had both Jimmy McCarty and Wayne Kramer as guitar players ..." Who'd guess? 

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