Blues artist James Montgomery adds 'co-producer' to resume with two bio docs

May 19—W hen James Montgomery takes the stage Sunday at the Rex Theatre in downtown Manchester, he'll be doing what he always does — channeling a couple of his heroes.

Like him, they were two harmonica players and singers who led high-energy blues bands.

"I've always modeled my live shows on James Cotton and Paul Butterfield, who are two of the most powerful front men to come out of Chicago," Montgomery said from his home in Newport, R.I., last week.

The two late, great blues icons have been a big part of Montgomery's resume in recent years.

His most recent album, 2016's "The James Montgomery Blues Band," was a tribute to Butterfield.

A documentary about Cotton that Montgomery co-produced — "Bonnie Blue: James Cotton's Life in the Blues" — premiered May 2 in Boston.

"We're thrilled. It debuted at the Independent Film Festival Boston to a packed house and was very enthusiastically received," he said.

Executive Producer Judy Laster, founder and director of the Woods Hole Film Festival, suggested she and Montgomery work on a film about Cotton. They worked together for more than 20 years to produce the Reel Blues Fest, concerts that were held in tandem with the Massachusetts film festival.

Completing the film with producer and director Bestor Cram ("Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison") was a long road that took nearly a decade.

"These documentary films. You shoot and then you run out of money. Then you get some more money and start shooting again," Montgomery said.

Since the film's Boston debut, it's been gaining momentum.

"We got really strong reviews. Actually the next day we got a call from a film representative," Montgomery said. "Right now, we're still getting offers for film festivals. We're probably going to be in another. It looks like Nashville is going to take it. lt looks like Chicago is going to take it. They're clamoring for it," Montgomery said with a laugh.

The film celebrates Cotton's influence on the blues and popular culture — including footage of him performing somersaults on stage — and examines his unlikely path to fame.

"At 9 years old he was orphaned on a plantation in the deep, segregated South. So part of the story is about this particular individual who became this extremely self-confident guy who is really fully established in his personality and his manhood," Montgomery said.

"He just became this very confident, very charismatic internationally known icon who played all over the world. It's an incredible journey both musically and in terms of a young Black man's ability to overcome the most dire circumstance in the world."

Montgomery looked up to Cotton as a father figure. Toward the end of Cotton's life, Montgomery would call him "Dad," and Cotton would call him "Son."

"Sometimes I'd call his wife, Jackyln. We'd chat for a while and then she'd say, 'Oh, your father wants to say hello,' and hand him the phone," said Montgomery, 73.

Montgomery also served as a co-producer of "America You Kill Me," a documentary about his younger brother, gay activist Jeffrey Montgomery. That documentary debuted at the Freep Film Festival in Detroit last month.

Jeffrey Montgomery, who died in 2016, became an advocate for LGBTQ rights after his partner was shot to death in 1984 outside a gay bar in Detroit. Believing police were not expending many resources to solve "just another gay killing," he began working on anti-violence issues.

"He was on the hit list for the Aryan Nations, so that showed you how effective he was," Montgomery said.

Montgomery has a packed schedule for the summer. He's left some of his weekends open in July for an all-star benefit concert in New Jersey he's planning with "Dancing with the Stars" alumnus Maks Chmerkovskiy, a professional dancer who was born in the Ukraine. And Montgomery has shows planned all over New England, including a May 27 gig at the Stone Church in Newmarket.

It's a heck of a lot better than 2020, when he spent most of the year sidelined like other musicians as the pandemic keep venues shuttered.

But there was an upside.

"It only took me about five minutes to do my taxes," Montgomery said.