Chris Montez

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Bill Price, and in this episode of Rock and Roll Flashback, we’ll take a look back at the career of Chris Montez.

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Transcript

In this episode of Rock and Roll Flashback, we’ll take a look back at the career of Chris Montez.

Chris Montez whose birth name is Ezekiel Christopher Montañez was born in Los
Angeles, California on January 17,1943. He grew up in the LA suburb of Hawthorn in a Mexican American family and consequently was influenced by the success of his music hero Ritchie Valens. Interestingly Chris met Ritchie at a performance in 1958. This prompted him to save some money so that he could record some songs at a recording studio. In 1962 Chris recorded a song written by Jim Lee titled “Let’s Dance”.

Fortunately the recording engineer auditioned the demo recordings for a few record producers. This resulted in Chris being signed to Monogram Records. The single rose to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and climbed to number two on the UK Singles Chart, for a period of four weeks. With this success he went on the road, touring through out the US. Later he enrolled at the El Camino College to study music composition.

The next release was “Some Kinda Fun”, which in the US did not chart as high as “Let’s Dance”. However in the UK it reached the number ten position in 1963. Both singles sold over one million copies and were awarded gold discs. During this time Chris toured with various artists, who included Clyde McPhatter, Sam Cooke, The Platters and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. In the UK, Chris appeared in concerts along with Tommy Roe, with the opening act, by a band that went by the name of The Beatles.

In 1965 Chris resumed recording, this time at A&M Records, hoping to duplicate the success of “Let’s Dance”. During one of the recording sessions, Herb Alpert suggested a move toward a middle of the road soft ballad sound. Initially Chris was reluctant, but agreed to try Herb’s suggestion. “Call Me” was a song written by Tony Hatch, which was initially recorded by Petula Clark. Chris’s version was the first single from the album “The More I See You”. “Call Me” was released in November 1965 and entered Billboard’s Easy Listening Top 40 and in December entered the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1966. By March the single reached the number two position on the Easy Listening chart and number 22 on the Hot 100. 

The next album release titled “The More I See You” produced two Top 40 singles, the title track and “There Will Never Be Another You”. Three additional albums titled “Time After Time”, “Foolin’ Around” and “ Watch What Happens”, were recorded at A&M. The title track from “Time After Time” did manage to reach the number 36 position on the Billboard Hot 100. However no other singles managed to reach the Top 40. After the release of “Watch What Happens” in 1968, Chris
left A&M Records. In 1972 he had a hit in Brazil with “Loco Por Ti” (Crazy About
You). For the next two years there was no activity. In 1974 he signed with CBS Records, and released an album titled “The Best of Chris Montez” which included a mixture of previous and new recordings. The second and final album released on CBS records was “Raza: Ay No Digas” which sold well internationally, but did not make an impact in the US. His final album “Cartas de Amor” released in 1983 contained only Spanish language material.

In the1970s, “Let’s Dance” was featured in the movie “Animal House” and also used in a television commercial. Here is the number four hit from 1962, “Let’s Dance”.
In July 2008, Frozen Pictures announced plans to produce a documentary on Chris’s life and music career. The film titled “The Chris Montez Story” was previewed in California at the 2009 Paso Robles Digital film festival, in the 2010 The Fest For Beatles Fans in New Jersey, and at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in California. In 2012 Montez was named as a distinguished alumnus member of El Camino College.

The Chris Montez Discography includes 20 singles and 7 albums We’ll conclude with the number sixteen hit “The More I see You”. This has been a look at the career of Chris Montez on Rock and Roll Flashback.
And until next time, I’m your host Bill Price.