Hard working blues-man Coco Montoya recently released a hand picked collection of some of his best stuff on The Essential Coco Montoya, out on Blind Pig Records.  I have been fortunate enough this past week to enjoy both the new disc and a taste of some of the tunes LIVE.  I saw Coco play a double bill with the excellent Tommy Castro Band at the Detroit area’s best live venue, Callahan’s in Auburn Hills.

Coco has been at this blues-rock thing for about 30 years now, but he didn’t start life in the music world as a guitarist.  His rise in the music world started with a meeting in the 70’s with bluesman Albert Collins, who took on Coco as his drummer. Five years later John Mayall snatched up Coco who played guitar with The Bluesbreakers for 10 years before going out on his own in 1993.

His band consists of keys, bass and drums backing Coco’s powerful voice and even more powerful guitar.  The sold out crowd was more than pleased with the bands energetic performance.  My favorite tune of the show was I Need Your Love in My Life from Coco’s 2000 release Suspicion.  Callahan’s is a relatively small club seating just over 200 packed in, so seeing a band as energetic as Coco’s is a real big thrill packed into a small place.

The new disc Essential while hand picked by Coco, includes tunes only from three previous Blind Pig releases from the mid nineties.  As you would expect since this is a Blind Pig release  it doesn’t contain material from any of Coco’s Alligator Records releases from 2000-2007.

He certainly has enough material on his previous Blind Pig releases to nicely fill an “Essentials” disc though.  Coco did say at the show that he is working on a new release scheduled for next year.   Certainly the new Essential disc is well worth checking out, but make sure to check Coco out if he comes anywhere near you!!