Music Notes: Montgomery Gentry

As a journalist of the female persuasion, I am tempted to open this article with “Boy, Howdy!”

As you browse through the photos with this article, which were taken at the WKIS Chili Cook-off in Pembroke Pines, Florida in late January, you can see why. Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry are two big, burly, good-lookin’ guys. In fact, if I were a little younger and a lot easier, I’d tell them both to “get in the truck”.

But they’d never go for it.

You are about to learn as I did, that the two men who comprise Montgomery Gentry are men of steel: men of conviction, faith, commitment and purpose. They are fierce. They are a force of nature. They are men who ride.

They are also men who work hard at making country music. But this ain’t your mom and dad’s country. This is country that rocks. Country that kicks butt. This country doesn’t cry in your beer, it taps a keg and invites everyone over for a party. This country doesn’t git down the fiddle and git down the bow, it gets down and dirty, it gets real, and it gets rocking.

Eddie Montgomery puts it this way, “We really didn’t mean it to be country or rock. We just knew that we grew up on guys that loved to have fun and raise hell and were great entertainers. Like Charlie Daniels, Waylon and Willie, Merle Haggard, Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers and Hank, Jr. They wasn’t politically correct, they went by their own set of rules, it was the entertainment rules. So that’s the way we’ve kind of done our style. And I think it’s why maybe everybody kind of likes us, too. It wasn’t, go up there and play a song and don’t say nothing to nobody. We was out there to have as much fun as everybody else and play great music.”

That great music has brought Montgomery Gentry much deserved success. They debuted in 1999 with the release of their album Tattoos and Scars, which went platinum. In 2000, they earned the Country Music Association’s award for Duo of the Year, the American Music Award for Favorite New Country Artist, and the Academy of Country Music Award for Top New Vocal Group or Duo. Two of their next three releases from 2002 – 2004 would also reach platinum status, My Town and You Do Your Thing (which contains two #1 singles, “Something To Be Proud Of” and “If You Ever Stop Loving Me”). Their single “Gone” from You Do Your Thing was the most played country single by a duo in 2005.

Not a bad little track record for a couple of guys who didn’t really plan for their career to take the...

We hope that you enjoyed reading this excerpt from "Montgomery Gentry". If you would like to read the entire article and more, you can order a back issue of April / May 2007 where this article was originally published.

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