Roy Montrell Biography & Awards

Billboard requires a JavaScript enabled browser to get the full experience

Artist Info

Born

February 27, 1928 New Orleans, LA

Died

March 16, 1979 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Biography

Roy Montrell was one of the busiest sessionmen, and one of the most influential guitarists in New Orleans for more than 20 years, playing with everyone from Bobby Mitchell to Roy Milton and Lloyd Price, as well as being a fixture in Fats Domino's band for years--along the way, he even found time to give guitar lessons to a youthful Mac Rebennack. The New Orleans answer to Steve Cropper in Memphis, Montrell was always booked somewhere on somebody's session, with the result that in more than 20 years in music, he only ever cut two singles of his own, one for Specialty with "(Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone" and one for Minit eith "Mudd." He played on hundreds, possibly thousands of recordings, some of them among the most famous recordings ever to come out of New Orleans--by the likes of Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Paul Gayten, Art Neville et al--and was also in heavy demand as a live musician, usually on tour as part of somebody's band. He died in Amsterdam while on a concert tour of Europe. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide