At 73 years old and nearly 50 years since Albert Collins took him on the road as a drummer, Henry “Coco” Montoya is enjoying the benefits that experience brings — to his playing and to his outlook. “As you get older and realize you don’t have anything to prove, really, you realize you were working way too hard when you were younger,” Montoya says via phone while traveling between shows on his current tour. “At this point, I want to play whatever I feel like playing and experiment and try some different things.
At my age, that’s what feels right to do.” The southpaw guitarist has a prodigious body of work to draw that from, too. In addition to his tenures with Collins and then John Mayall — who pulled the California-born Montoya out of a day job at a Los Angeles bar to join his reformed Bluesbreakers in 1994 — he’s released 10 solo albums.
The most recent, “Writing on the Wall,” was recorded with his touring band — including keyboardist Jeff Paris, who produced at his home studio — and includes a cover of Lonnie Mack’s “Stop” and two duets with touring partner Ronnie Baker Brooks. For his shows, meanwhile, Montoya has “revisited some of the old tunes from a while back,” which has also given him some insight into his evolution over the past five decades. “When you go back and revisit a song you haven’t played in many years .
.. it takes you back,” he explains.
“It’s amazing what you might do with it now. It might be a whole new.
