Like his uncle Ramón Montoya, Carlos Montoya also became a successful and influential flamenco guitarist. Born into a gypsy family in Spain, his interest in music and the guitar began at an early age. He began studying the guitar with his mother and a neighboring barber, eventually learning from Pepe el Barbero, a guitarist and teacher.

Montoya started playing professionally at the age of fourteen, accompanying singers and dancers at the cafés in Madrid. Two of the dancers he most often played for were La Teresina and La Argentina.

Starting in the 1920s, he began touring Europe, Asia, and North America. At the time World War II broke out in 1939, Carlos was on tour with a dancer in the United States. He decided to settle in New York City, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.

By the end of the war, Carlos had broadened his repertoire to include not only flamenco, but also blues, jazz, and folk music. He became the first flamenco guitarist to tour the world with symphonies and orchestras. He performed on television and recorded more than forty albums, including Suite Flamenco, a concerto he performed with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1966.

Carlos Montoya transformed flamenco from a dance accompaniment to a serious form of guitar music with a style all its own. With his own style, he adapted it to other genres of music, making himself an international star along the way. He died at the age of eighty-nine in Wainscott, New York.