Roots Music Report

Mike Montgomery was born in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He grew up in Oklahoma, Kansas, and California though he spent the greatest part of his childhood on the farm homesteaded by his great-grandfather in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. His earliest musical memories were of listening to Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles on the radio and responding deeply to their music. He also had his young soul stirred by the gospel quartets at Kansas tent revivals. By the age of eight, he knew that he wanted to make music like the blues, country and rock and roll that affected him so strongly. When he was nine he succeeded in talking his grandparents into getting him his first guitar. When he wasn't plunking on that he was trying to pick out Jerry Lee Lewis or Floyd Cramer licks on the old upright piano in the Montgomery living room. At 15 he'd formed his first band and did his first recording at songwriter Glen Sullivan's Oklahoma City Studio. A year later he was appearing on local TV shows as well as playing honky-tonks and teen dances around the state. Mike went on to study music at Oklahoma City University before moving to Fort Worth, Texas and later to Houston. There he joined Bloontz, a blues-rock band which moved to New York after securing a recording deal with Evolution Records. While living in New York he was hired by Johnny Nash to become Musical Director and form a backing band for the singer. Montgomery was also active on the New York session scene, recording with David Bowie / Lulu, and Blood, Sweat & Tears among many others. In 1975 he was approached to replace Ian Hunter as front-man in Mott The Hoople but decided to respond instead to legendary guitarist Paul Kossoff’s request that he move to London to form a band with him. Back Street Crawler was quickly signed to a deal with Atlantic Records. After leaving Crawler in 1976, Mike recorded a solo album with an all-star cast of friends (Thin Lizzy, Blood Sweat and Tears, Meatloaf, etc...). Mike
moved back to New York in the early 80's and had been involved in a variety of projects, including the scoring of the film "Vice Squad". Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, and Rick Derringer are among the many artists he worked with during this time. He later formed the band Rough House a primal mixture of blues, R&B, and high octane rock and roll. Mike passed away in 1991 after a hard-fought battle with Lung Cancer.