William Moore

Half of the recordings done by this artist may have gone the way of Jimmy Hoffa's corpse, but the eight tracks that were released in the late '20s and subsequently reissued time and time again easily maintain the reputation of William "bill" Moore as an elite country blues multi-instrumentalist in the elaborate syncopated East Coast blues or Piedmont blues style. There is also a blues conspiracy theory in which two different people named William Moore actually created the body of work more often attributed to one, yet even in this case the instrumental dexterity of half of them is never questioned.



In the '20s and '30s, many commercial record labels looked for country blues and classic blues artists to make recordings with. Representation was light on the southeastern seaboard in comparison with other areas of the nation such as Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta. Moore hailed from the so-called tidewater area of Tappahannock, VA, and was enlisted by Paramount in 1928, the project involving his traveling to Chicago in a frozen and frosted January for a single recording session. This event stood in contrast to Moore's normal life; he ran several barbershops, the inspiration for his brilliant "Barbershop Rag," and also made some income as a farmer.

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