Whilst Montrose failed to make the kind of impact their pioneering early work merited, they have nonetheless influenced a whole generation of hard rock and metal bands. A rare snatch of their brilliance as a stage band can be heard in the Barbara Striesand film ‘A Star is Born’ (1976), which features an unseen Montrose hammering out a scintillating version of one of their greatest songs, Rock Candy, as Streisand arrives backstage. Prior to forming the band Ronnie Montrose had been a successful session musician (playing, along with Bill Church on Van Morrison’s 1971 Tupelo Honey album, also produced by Ted Templeman, and on albums by Beaver & Krause and Herbie Hancock). He was also a member of the Edgar Winter Band, playing on such hit singles as ‘Free Ride’, which was from the best-selling album ‘They Only Come Out at Night’ (1972). The guitarist later formed another band in the hard rock mould in the early 1980s, named Gamma, who featured Denny Carmassi, of the original Montrose band and late of Sammy Hagar’s band, Jim Alcivar from Montrose, and a Scottish singer named Davey Pattison. In its original incarnation, Gamma released several albums on Elektra records (‘Gamma 1’, ‘Gamma 2’, and ‘Gamma 3’) before splitting. The original Montrose line-up reuinited on Sammy Hagar’s Marching to Mars (1997) performing “Leaving the Warmth of the Womb” and on stage as an encore at a few Sammy concerts in 2003 and 2005. Those with sharp ears heard the FM rock radio staple “Rock Candy” on an episode of “My Name Is Earl” in 2008 on NBC. |
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