On the midnight of the fourth of February, exactly eighty-six years after the turn of the twentieth century, musician Sammy Montanaro graciously fell to this Earth.
Raised in Louisiana, and trained under the legendary blues guitarist Charlie Harris, Montanaro lived an early life of solidarity, his steel guitar and voice his only companions. Yet, they were friends for the better, as his voice was unlike nothing the world had ever heard: it was so fresh and so pure that those onto whose ears it fell, even if only for a moment, swore that there was Heaven on Earth. What made his already perfect voice even grander was his innate ability to harmonize to even the most daunting octaves, earning him the nickname "Crosby" at the young age of five, after musician and harmony master David Crosby.
Yet, all good things soon come to an end. By the age of eight, Montanaro's life had taken a turn for the worse: the rising drug scene in New Orleans caught the vulnerable musician off guard, and he became a part of it. Addicted, and unaware of the consequences, the young Montanaro took to the streets as a drug dealer--a way he found that was easiest to feed his deadly habit. And deadly it was: a drug bust saw his entire family killed that year, and Montanaro, now addicted to speedballs insofar that he had forgotten how to sing and play, was sent to The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville to serve a ten-year sentence.
The sentence Montanaro received was bittersweet: he would lose contact with the world around him, but a world that only fueled his devastating spin into drug-addled oblivion. Finally free from drugs, it was at this time that Montanaro would regain his love for music. Sharing his cell with future YouTube musician Mark DelMedico provided the catalyst. DelMedico was an avid folk-rock aficionado, and his guitar skills, which paralleled Harris's, Montanaro's past mentor, brought Montanaro back to the musical garden he once cherished. Putting on the odd harmony to DelMedico's impressive folio of songs, they spent the years making precious music together.
It was this wonderful sound that caught the attention of Canadian DJ Joey Cos who, in his highly-acclaimed radio show Feelin' Young , decided to have Montanaro and DelMedico as guests. Montanaro, whilst still locked away, would go on to finish his jail days by writing some of the most beautiful songs the world has yet to hear. Meanwhile, Cos (the brilliant man he is), knew talent and urged Montanaro to come to Canada and study English at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Cos's home town, in an attempt to polish Montanaro’s already brilliant musical penmanship. A free man by the age of eighteen, Montanaro decided to do just that.
Those studies have only recently ended, and, after briefly managing the ill-fated Charlie Washington and the Midnight Express, and recording in studio with southern rock sensation MoneyHoney , Montanaro is now currently working to reveal his lost musical treasures—treasures that stem from a time of forbiddance, agony, and redemption.
-Bio by official MySpace biographer Joseph Del Paggio.
(The preceding may or may not have been fabricated and/or loosely based on inside jokes and on the lives of Stephen Stills and/or David Crosby with sparse factual material). Check Facebook for real info.
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