Chris Montez

• 1. Introduction

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  Chris Montez was born Ezekiel Christopher Montanez on the 17th of January, 1943, in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Hawthorne in a Mexican-American family, shaped by the Latino-flavored music of his community. Then in 1962, a single called "Let's Dance" shot to number four on the Billboard Hot 100, and a teenage kid from the suburbs found himself on the same stages as Sam Cooke and The Platters. What happened next is a story of reinvention, of a rock-and-roll voice that transformed into a silky soft-ballad tenor. And there is one moment from those early touring years that has become its own footnote in music history.

• 2. Hawthorne to Stardom

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  Ritchie Valens was the musical hero who lit the path for Montez. Montez met Valens briefly at a show in 1958, and that encounter proved lasting. He went on to study music composition at El Camino College, grounding his ambitions in something formal.

  When Montez walked into a recording session in 1962, he was working with Monogram Records on a track written and produced by Jim Lee. "Let's Dance" climbed to number four in the United States and number two on the UK Singles Chart, spending four weeks in that position. The follow-up, "Some Kinda Fun", reached number ten in the UK in January 1963. Both records sold over one million copies and earned gold discs.

  The tours that followed put Montez alongside Clyde McPhatter, Sam Cooke, The Platters, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. A young Montez was at the top of those bills, with all the momentum of a genuine rock-and-roll star behind him.

• 3. The Beatles Anecdote

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  While Montez was performing with Tommy Roe in Britain, The Beatles opened concerts for him at London, York, and Northampton. The exchange captured a particular moment in pop history. Montez later remarked, "Who are these guys, The Beatles? I try to keep up with the British scene, but I don't know their work."

  That comment, made without any sense of irony at the time, placed Montez at one of music's great pivot points. He was a headliner while four young men from Liverpool were still the support act. Within months, the world would know exactly who The Beatles were.

• 4. Herb Alpert's Gamble

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  By 1965, Montez had returned to the recording studio. His destination this time was A&M Records, and the plan was to recreate the rock-and-roll magic of "Let's Dance". A&M co-founder Herb Alpert, who co-produced Montez's first album for the label, interrupted that plan with a suggestion. Alpert urged Montez to try a middle-of-the-road, soft-ballad sound instead.

  Montez was reluctant. But he trusted his mentor and agreed to try the approach. The first single released under this new direction was "Call Me", a Tony Hatch composition that Petula Clark had originally recorded. Released in November 1965, it entered the Easy Listening Top 40 in Billboard that December, then crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1966. By March of that year, it peaked at number two on the Easy Listening chart and number 22 on the Hot 100.

  Montez's voice, delivered in a soft and very high tenor range, was so different from his earlier work that some disc jockeys who did not know his history were confused about who they were playing.

• 5. The More I See You

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  The album named after that moment of reinvention was called The More I See You, released in 1966. It reached number 33 on the US album chart and number 20 on a companion chart. Beyond "Call Me", the album produced two additional Top 40 singles: the title track "The More I See You" and "There Will Never Be Another You".

  "The More I See You" peaked at number 16 on the Hot 100 and number two on the Easy Listening chart. "There Will Never Be Another You" reached number 33 on the Hot 100. The title track also climbed to number three in the UK, extending Montez's transatlantic presence into his second chapter as a recording artist.

  The track "Call Me" took on a life beyond the charts. It was later used in Frantic, the film starring Harrison Ford, exposing it to audiences who had never heard of Montez's early rock-and-roll years.

• 6. Shifting Fortunes

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  Montez recorded three more albums for A&M: Time After Time, Foolin' Around, and Watch What Happens. None of them matched the reach of The More I See You. The title track "Time After Time" reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, but that would be the last single to crack the top 40. Other releases landed below that threshold or only on the Billboard Easy Listening Top 40.

  After Watch What Happens arrived in 1968, Montez departed A&M Records. In November 1972, he charted a Latin hit in Brazil with "Loco Por Ti (Crazy About You)". That same song reached number seven in the Netherlands, and "Ay No Digas" reached number three there in 1973. Montez resurfaced in 1974 at CBS Records with The Best of Chris Montez, a compilation mixing old and new recordings.

  His final album, Cartas de Amor, released in 1983, was composed entirely of Spanish-language material. The record did not make an impact in the United States, but it completed a discography that had moved across rock, soft pop, and Latin styles across more than two decades.

• 7. Legacy and Later Work

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  "Let's Dance" remained in circulation long after the charts had moved on. It appeared on the soundtrack of John Landis's Animal House, introducing the song to a new generation of listeners. In 2013, it was used as a jingle for a DSW Shoe Warehouse commercial.

  In July 2008, Frozen Pictures announced plans to produce a documentary musical film on Montez's life and career. The film, El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, was previewed at the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival in November 2009, at The Fest For Beatles Fans in March 2010 in Secaucus, New Jersey, and at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in May 2010. Director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson joined Montez for those screenings.

  Montez worked within Mexican-American communities across California, focusing on education and healthy living. On the 16th of September, 2011, in San Antonio, Texas, he received the First Annual SOPA (Stop Obesity Promote Activity) Wellness Award, one of four given to national celebrities that day. In 2012, El Camino College named him a distinguished alumnus, circling back to the place where he had first studied music composition as a young man from Hawthorne.