1966 Chris Montez – The More I See You

1966 Chris Montez – The More I See You

Ezekiel Christopher Montanez grew up in Hawthorne, California, and began recording music for Guaranteed Records as Chris Montez in 1960. He moved to Monogram Records in 1962 and reached the charts with his second single for the label. Let’s Dance reached #4 on the Hot 100 in 1962 and sold over a million copies.

That led to the recording of his first album. He toured the UK with Tommy Roe, and an up-and-coming band from Liverpool was their opening act for a few stops (yes, the Beatles).

Chris was unable to capitalize on his initial success, only reaching #43 with his next single and not charting at all for a few years afterwards.

Songwriter/producer Tony Hatch frequently worked with Petula Clark. In 1965, she recorded a song Tony had written, Call Me. She included the song on an EP (a record with two songs on each side) but did not release it as a single.

Chris had moved to A&M Records and wanted to record another rock song similar to his first hit, but Herb Alpert convinced him to try a ballad instead. The result was a cover of Petula’s single that they released in late 1965.

Call Me reached #22 on the Hot 100 in February 1966 and nearly topped the Adult Contemporary chart (it peaked at #2).

The songwriting team of composer Harry Warren and lyricist Mack Gordon had written numerous songs. They won the 1943 Academy Award for best song for You’ll Never Know. They also wrote the song The More I See You, which was sung by Dick Haymes in the film Diamond Horseshoe.

Chris released The More I See You as his follow-up single after Call Me with similar results to his first hit on A&M Records. The song reached #16 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart a few months later in 1966.

The next two singles from Chris peaked at #33 and #36 on the Hot 100, after which he never reached the top forty again. Those singles and three more reached the top forty on the Adult Contemporary chart, but he never reached that chart again either after 1968.

Chris continues to tour and perform and maintains a website at http://www.chrismontez.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Montez

I have collected older articles about Lost or Forgotten Oldies in my books.

Please visit my author page on Amazon where I sell my paperbacks, eBooks, and audiobooks.

You can even read the books for free if you have Kindle Unlimited!