The blues are coming to town.
Harmonica wizard James Montgomery, who’s been singing and playing the blues for 40 years, will make his first appearance at Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham on Friday, Sept. 11. “I’m bringing a killer band, the best in the business,” said the Detroit native. “We’re going to have an absolute ball with it.” The James Montgomery Blues Band will play at 8 p.m. in Amazing Things’ renovated Hollis Street center. Tickets are still available. Montgomery’s blues pedigree extends back to the late 1960s when he played at age 19 with legendary performers John Lee Hooker, James Cotton and Junior Wells. He remembered making the two-hour drive to Detroit as a teenager to listen to them play the blues in a famous club named “Chessmate.” “When I heard those blues for the first time, I saw ‘Wow! That’s what I want to do,”‘ said Montgomery.
While studying English at Boston University, Montgomery started his blues band which burst onto the Boston music scene in 1971, first playing in little clubs like the Candlelight Lounge in Cambridge before attracting national attention at a large anti-war rally on the Boston Common.