Lovers Lane
In The Flesh

Monte Montgomery preview

| December 10, 2008

Monte Montgomery
Morse Theatre, Chicago
Friday, December 12, 2008

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Here’s why Monte Montgomery is playing at the newly reinvented Morse Theatre in front of sophisticated jazz connoisseurs instead of Joe’s on Weed Street for drunk, “oh there’s a band playing?” Lincoln Parkers: He can play the guitar like an S.O.B.

Montgomery, though, doesn’t just want his virtuosic acoustic guitar playing to define his career: he stresses, via his press kit, he wants to be equally revered as a singer and songwriter. Guitar playing: check (Guitar Player named him one of the Top 50 Greatest Guitar Players Of All Time in 2005). Singing: check. The Texan, via Alabama, displays a rich and versatile voice on songs like “River” and “Company You Keep” from this year’s self-titled album. Songwriting: eeeeh. At his best (“Can’t Fool Everyone”) Montgomery channels influences like Fleetwood Mac and Dire Straits, but at his worst (“Let’s Go”), he sounds like a pop country version of Creed, and the only thing worse than Creed is pop country Creed. Still, his jaw-dropping cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” (jazzier than Stevie Ray Vaughan’s blues barn burner) should be worth the ticket price alone.

— Trevor Fisher

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly

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