Chris Montez

Chris Montez, born Ezekiel Christopher Montanez ( born January 17, 1943 in Los Angeles ) is an American pop singer of Mexican descent.

Musical career

Montez spent his childhood in Hawthorne, a southwestern suburb of Los Angeles. His family with Hispanikhintergrund was passionate about music, and as a child he performed with his brothers with rancheras songs. After he had learned to play guitar by his brothers, he began to be interested in rock ' n ' roll and especially for Richie Valens. As a teenager, he founded his own band, with whom he recited also self-penned songs. This Montez fell on the owner of the record company Monogram Records Jim Lee, who signed him in 1961.

In February 1962, appeared Montez ' first single with Monogram, whose A- Title All You Had to Do he himself had composed. Already with his second plate, which appeared three months later, was for Montez to a great success. The title of Let's Dance climbed the Hot 100 in the U.S. music magazine Billboard at number four and reached international top positions. Worldwide, the plate was sold over a million copies. End of the year Montez came with the written also by him entitled Some Kinda Fun again in the Hot 100 These successes brought him to participate in numerous television shows as well as touring with, among others, Sam Cooke and Clyde McPhatter and gigs in the UK. Although Monogram yet brought out six more singles with Montez, no further disk successes came one more.

Then Montez ended his involvement with Monogram and closed in early 1965 a new recording contract with the record company A & M Records from. There he met Herb Alpert, the future, more of his plates produced and Montez, given the fractured Beat era to Softbaladen style oriented toward. This measure proved to be correct, because even with the first single and the title Call Me Montez returned to the Hot 100 back (Rank 22). The follow-up song sold even better, it reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and was also again become an international success, so with number three in the UK. After 1967, the sale of Montez plates began to stagnate again, left Montez 1968, the A & M record label.

After a few attempts at the record companies Paramount and Jamie Montez In 1972, CBS International, under contract to revive his career in Europe again. He sang mainly singles with new titles in English and Spanish, which were mainly sold in Germany and the Netherlands. With the new edition of Let 's Dance reached Montes 1972 in the UK once again a place in the top 10 ( 9 ). With titles Ay No Digas and Now One Knows Montez came in 1973 in the German charts, where he could see the places 20 and 32 show. In addition, CBS brought the LPs Let's Dance and Ay No Digas on the European market. 2008 Frozen Pictures produced the documentary El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, which premiered in November 2009 at the Digital Film Festival in Paso Robles, California.

Charts USA, GB, D

U.S. Discography

Vinlyl singles

LPs

Compact Discs *

* Available in Germany