About Us

There are musicians who play music, and then there are musicians who seem to have lived inside it. For Kory Montgomery, the latter has always been true. His sound is rooted in the blues but refuses to stay there, pulling from funk, jazz, rock, soul, and the countless musical influences he has absorbed throughout a career spent learning from, and alongside, some of the most compelling musicians of his generation. The result is unmistakably his own: raw, rhythmic, soulful, occasionally reckless, and always deeply human.

Kory’s relationship with music started early. At just 15 years old, his band landed an opening slot for B.B. King, giving him an early glimpse of the life he would eventually build. Since then, he has opened for artists including Earth, Wind & Fire, JJ Grey & Mofro, Robert Randolph, and the North Mississippi Allstars; sat in with Billy Strings and The Infamous Stringdusters; and toured as guitarist for Andy Frasco & The U.N. and The Blues Brothers Revue, directed by Paul Shaffer.

Along the way, Kory became as much a student of music as a performer of it. Years of playing, recording, touring, collaborating, and simply being in the room with great musicians taught him a lesson he carries into everything he does: you can only be as good as the people around you, and the real work is in processing what they teach you.

For years, Kory wrote and recorded music for himself and for other artists, quietly collecting songs that held a deeper significance. Eventually, he realized there were songs he couldn’t leave undocumented. So, ten years after his last full-length release, Kory is finally recording for himself.

How Many People Does It Take? is a collection of ideas, stories, and songs gathered across the course of his life in music. Rather than simply looking backward, the album brings that history into the present, with Kory surrounded by many of the musicians who have helped shape his journey. The collected cast includes members of the Sturgill Simpson Band, Blind Boys of Alabama, Lettuce, Andy Frasco, Dopapod, and many more. The record feels less like a return than a reckoning with everything that came before it. The music he loved, the people he learned from, the songs that stayed with him, and the artist he has become.

While the album may have taken ten years to arrive, Kory isn’t interested in easing back into the conversation. He’s ready to push. Ready to take the songs that have lived in him for years and put them into the world. Ready, in his own words, to fully put himself out there. And if you need a better description of what happens once you press play, well someone once called Kory’s sound “a backwoods orgy of blues, funk and jazz fusion that leaves the listener drunk, horny and looking for a fight.” That still feels about right.