The Montgomery Express - 1973 - The Montgomery Movement

The Montgomery Express

1973

The Montgomery Movement

01. Montgomery Movement 4:44
02. Who 2:58
03. Steal Away 2:40
04. Precious Wing 3:32
05. Party Fever 5:14
06. I'm Standing By 2:30
07. Gotta Make A Comeback 4:05
08. Left Me With A Memory 3:05

Charles Atkins
Paul Montgomery

The following artist is lost and probably will never be found. How did I stumble upon it? I can't even remember. The band is a funk/soul outfit called The Montgomery Express from Florida and their 1974 album is The Montgomery Movement. There are zero reviews of this album on amazon. In my google search, I found a few blog posts by writers who probably stumbled upon the music by accident. Now, should you look through your uncle's funk and soul vinyl collection and happen to find a copy of The Montgomery Movement, keep it safe! Used copies run around $450.

It took seconds only of listening to the opening title track of their album The Montgomery Movement for me to pay attention. A quick and simple jam, "The Montgomery Movement" is built upon a slightly dissonant, cry-baby wha, guitar riff. It is a guitar players dream! Totally irresistible. Track two, "Who" is a ballad and the first song with vocals. It is just as effective. The expectations are set pretty high for the rest of the album and unfortunately, the remaining six tracks never quite reach the grandeur of the opening quarter of the The Montgomery Movement. Good not great, but still absolutely worth listening to. Still, If funk and soul is your thang, then do whatchu wanna do. Me? I think whatchu wanna do is put this album on soon. Do it.

Original Pressing Cover

Funk’s answer to the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Florida’s Montgomery Express stood at the crossroads of politically conscious soul and mystically awakened dance music. Comprised of two blind musicians in their twenties and a teenage rhythm section, their lone LP was cut in 1972 for Orlando’s Dove label, then reissued on Folkways two years later. Although the label usually steered clear of soul music and anything remotely commercial sounding, Montgomery Express tapped into Folkways’ Guthrie-cum-Chambers Brothers nerve.

Super rare funk album released on smithsonian folkways in the early 1970s. "The music of the Montgomery Express is a buried homegrown funk classic that always pulls in triple bills when original copies pop up on the fanatical circuit of DJs, vinyl freaks and wayward souls looking for the perfect groove. This is all for a damned good reason. This 1973/74 album was cut by a group formed almost overnight in an obscure pocket of Florida called Indiantown. Led by two blind guys in their 20s (Paul Montgomery & Charles Atkins) with the aid of a couple of teenage groovemasters, The Montgomery Express spent just two short years together on the regional circuit. They played before regularly packed audiences on a stage lined with hip shaking go-go girls at Indiantown's Cadillac Club before slipping into obscurity. There were no bitter disputes, no creative rivalries, other obligations came up and the party came to an end. As Paul Montgomery put it to us, 'If we could find one another right now, it would be like a family reunion and we'd just start playing again.' Thankfully for us, until that day comes, we've got this joint to get our daily fix. Party Fever is a record of smooth but lackadaisical funk, peppered with sweet soul, tight grooves, shuffle tunes and outright panty dropping music! Highlights include a stunning version of Eddie Floyd's yearning 'Gotta Make a Comeback' that won't leave a dry eye on the checkerboard floor and the deeply soulful tune 'Precious Wing'.

I think we all like listening to "lost" music or music that never gained any traction when it was originally released. When it finally becomes popular or finds appreciation, as in the case of the lost music of Rodriguez or Nick Drake, its a very humbling feeling. It makes you feel like anything is possible.

Not like it matters, but the two singers Paul Montgomery and Charles Atkins are both blind. I think blind people would probably find including such a fact superfluous. Unless someone commissions printing this blog into a braille text, I don't think they will read this article anyway.

A massive lost funk classic -- one of those rarer than rare albums that's well worth the fuss! The Montgomery Express were a Florida combo who played on the state's small club circuit -- working equally well on their own, or backing up a number of better known singers. The group's got a diversity that's really great -- and they're equally well-suited to longer, trippier funk instrumentals, and shorter more soul-based tunes. The vocal numbers are especially haunting, as they've got a moody and sad feel that's more like New Jersey or Detroit group soul of the time than the usual Miami soul -- and the funkier tunes have a nice psychedelic approach that uses plenty of sweetly-tuned guitar!