Career
Montrose was born in San Francisco, California. When he was a toddler, his parents moved back to his mother's home state of Colorado (his father was from Bertrand, Nebraska, and his mother was from Golden, Colorado). He spent most of his younger years in Colorado until he ran away at about 16 years old to pursue his musical career. He ultimately spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1969, he started out in a band called Sawbuck with Bill Church. Montrose had been in the process of recording what would have been his first album with Sawbuck when producer David Rubinson arranged an audition with Van Morrison. Montrose got the job and played on Morrison's 1971 album Tupelo Honey. He also played on the song "Listen to the Lion", which was recorded during the Tupelo Honey sessions but released on Morrison's next album. Saint Dominic's Preview (1972).
Montrose played briefly with Boz Scaggs and then joined the Edgar Winter Group in 1972, recording electric guitar, acoustic 12 string, and mandolin on Winter's third album release, They Only Come Out at Night (1972), which included the hit singles "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride". He then formed his own band, Montrose, in 1973, featuring Sammy Hagar on vocals. That incarnation of the band released two albums on Warner Bros. Records, Montrose (1973) and Paper Money (1974), before Hagar left to pursue a solo career. Although the liner notes for the CD edition of Paper Money said that Ronnie was offered to play lead guitar for Mott the Hoople when he left the Edgar Winter Group, Ronnie says that it never happened and was just a rumor. He also added his guitar work to Gary Wright's song, "Power of Love" off the 1975 album, The Dream Weaver.
The guitarist released two more Montrose band albums in the rock/vocal format (Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose! and Jump on It, featuring vocalist Bob James replacing Sammy Hagar), then shifted direction and under the name of 'Ronnie Montrose' released the guitar-instrumental solo album Open Fire before returning to the rock-vocal format and forming Gamma in 1979, initially releasing three albums under that name with Davey Pattison singing.
In 1983 he played lead guitar on the song "(She Is A) Telepath" from Paul Kantner's album Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra although he wasn't a member of the original PERRO.
In 1985 he joined Seattle's Rail (winners of MTV's first Basement Tapes video competition) for several months. He was looking for a new band and one of Rail's guitarists, Rick Knotts, had recently left. Billed as Rail featuring Ronnie Montrose or Ronnie & Rail, they played a set of half Rail favorites and half Montrose songs ("Rock Candy," "Rock the Nation," "Matriarch," and Gamma's remake of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air"). At the end of the tour, there was an amicable split.
He continued to record through the 1980s and 1990s, releasing another Montrose album entitled 'Mean' and Gamma put out a fourth album in 2000.
Ronnie Montrose appeared on Sammy Hagar's Marching To Mars along with original Montrose members Bill Church and Denny Carmassi on the song "Leaving The Warmth Of The Womb." The original Montrose lineup also reformed to play as a special guest at several Sammy Hagar concerts in summer 2004 and 2005. Ronnie Montrose has also performed regularly from 2002 to present with a Montrose lineup featuring Keith St. John on lead vocals and a rotating cast of veteran hard rock players on bass and drums.
On his most recent tour, in late 2009, Montrose revealed that he had successfully fought prostate cancer over the last two years; however, the cancer returned soon after.
The coroner's report released on April 6, 2012 ruled his death a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died on March 3, 2012. He was 64.
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