Tiny Moore
Billie "Tiny" Moore (May 12, 1920 – December 15, 1987) was an American Western swing musician who played the electric mandolin and fiddle with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1940s. He played with The Strangers and Merle Haggard during the 1970s and 1980s.[1]
Career
Moore was born in the Gulf Coast town of Port Arthur, Texas, in 1920. His primary instrument was electric mandolin.[2] While a member of the Texas Playboys from 1946 to 1950, he played Gibson electric mandolins: at first an EM-125, and sometime after 1948, an EM-150.[3] Although these are 8-string mandolins, Moore used four single strings instead of pairs. This made his mandolin sound like an electric guitar. In 1952, he commissioned a five-string electric mandolin from Paul Bigsby. Moore was playing in a band led by Bob Wills' brother, Billy Jack. The Bigsby 5-string mandolin had single courses of strings (rather than the paired courses on a standard mandolin) and added a low C string to the standard G, D, A and E. This tuning actually gives the instrument a wider range of notes than a guitar.[4]
Western swing is a hybrid of country, blues, and jazz; Moore's style of playing draws from all of these sources. Moore and his Bigsby mandolin were identified with each other for the remainder of his career.
In the mid-1960s he taught group guitar lessons at the local YMCA in Sacramento, California. He taught every style of music. He operated Tiny Moore Music, a music store in Sacramento, and sold copies of the Bigsby mandolin built by Jay Roberts of Yuba City. In the 1970s he made two albums with for Kaleidoscope Records: Tiny Moore Music and Back to Back, a duet album with Jethro Burns. In 1999, Moore was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.[5]
References
- ^ McCall, Michael; Rumble, John; Kingsbury, Paul (December 16, 2004). The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Oxford University Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-19-977055-7.
- ^ "Tiny Moore". Retrieved June 1, 2011.
- ^ McPeters, Buddy. "Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore and Gibson EM-150 Electric Mandolins". Retrieved June 1, 2011.
- ^ Carter, Walter (December 1, 2016). The Mandolin in America: The Full Story from Orchestras to Bluegrass to the Modern Revival. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-4930-7927-8.
- ^ "Tiny Moore". mogc. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
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- The Strangers
- Norm Hamlet
- Ralph Mooney
- Tiny Moore
- Roy Nichols
- Gene Price
- Eldon Shamblin
- Gordon Terry
- Biff Adam
- Jimmy Belken
- Eddie Burris
- Gary Church
- Wayne Durham
- George French
- Dennis Hromek
- Don Markham
- Johnny Meeks
- Marcia Nichols
- Ronnie Reno
- Clint Strong
- Jim Tittle
- Jerry Ward
- Bobby Wayne
- Mark Yeary
- Strangers
- Swinging Doors ‡
- I'm a Lonesome Fugitive ‡
- Branded Man ‡
- Sing Me Back Home ‡
- The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde ‡
- Mama Tried ‡
- Pride in What I Am ‡
- Same Train, a Different Time ‡
- A Portrait of Merle Haggard ‡
- A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills) ‡
- Hag ‡
- Someday We'll Look Back ‡
- Let Me Tell You About a Song ‡
- It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad) ‡
- If We Make It Through December ‡
- Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album ‡
- Keep Movin' On ‡
- It's All in the Movies ‡
- My Love Affair with Trains ‡
- The Roots of My Raising ‡
- Ramblin' Fever
- A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today ‡
- My Farewell to Elvis
- I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall
- Serving 190 Proof
- The Way I Am
- Back to the Barrooms
- Big City
- Going Where the Lonely Go
- That's the Way Love Goes
- It's All in the Game
- Kern River
- Out Among the Stars
- A Friend in California
- Chill Factor
- 5:01 Blues
- Blue Jungle
- 1994
- 1996
- If I Could Only Fly
- Roots, Volume 1
- The Peer Sessions
- Haggard Like Never Before
- Unforgettable
- Chicago Wind
- The Bluegrass Sessions
- I Am What I Am
- Working in Tennessee
- Songs I'll Always Sing
- Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits
- His Epic Hits: The First 11 (To Be Continued...)
- Down Every Road 1962–1994
- 16 Biggest Hits
- Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard
- Okie from Muskogee ‡
- The Fightin' Side of Me ‡
- I Love Dixie Blues ‡
- Rainbow Stew Live at Anaheim Stadium
- The Epic Collection (Recorded Live)
- Amber Waves of Grain
- The Land of Many Churches ‡
- Songs for the Mama That Tried
- Cabin in the Hills
- Two Old Friends (with Albert E. Brumley, Jr.)
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