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BOB MOORE (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Bob Loyce Moore (born November 30, 1932 in Nashville,
Tennessee), is an American session musician, orchestra leader, and
legendary bassist.
Moore developed his musical skills as a boy, and by age fifteen he
was playing double bass on a tent show tour with a Grand Ole Opry
musical group. At age eighteen he excepted a position touring with
Little Jimmy Dickens. At age twenty, his abilities brought an offer
to play on the famed Red Foley TV show, The Ozark Jubilee. Working
with Foley’s band in Springfield, Missouri while traveling to
Nashville on weekends proved to be exhausting. After two years, he
returned to his native Nashville.
Bob Moore was a child of 12 when he first met Owen Bradley. At that
time, Owen was playing trombone in WSM’s staff band. In 1950 Owen
Bradley hired Bob Moore to perform on a direct-to-disk transcription
which was uploaded via cable from the stage of the Ryman Theatre.
Soon thereafter, Owen Bradley became the head of Nashville’s
division of Decca records. Bob Moore’s blossoming musical talent
coincided perfectly with Owen Bradley’s transition to businessman
and thus, Bob’s session musician career was born.
Bob Moore went on to perform on more than seventeen thousand
recordings sessions or the equivalent of about 50,000 songs.
In 1958 he played on his first of many Elvis Presley sessions. The
following year he teamed up with Fred Foster to establish Monument
Records where he would become part of the musical success of Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame singer, Roy Orbison. In 1960, he formed the
Bob Moore Orchestra and recorded an album which included the song
“Mexico” that as a 45rpm single went to No. 7 on the Billboard pop
music charts.
In his long career, Moore has worked in a variety of music scenes,
including a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival and recording
with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. While he has
strong roots in country music, and in 1994 Life magazine named him
the number one “Country Bassist” of all time, as a sessions player
his volume and diversity of work is unrivaled, having performed with
artists such as Bob Dylan, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sammy
Davis, Jr., Julie Andrews, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Connie
Francis, Wayne Newton, Quincy Jones, Burl Ives, and for the French
singer, Johnny Halliday. His son is outsider rock singer/songwriter
R. Stevie Moore. His daughter, Linda Faye Moore, was Miss Tennessee
and a Top 10 finisher in theMiss America pageant; she was a member
of the 1980’s country-pop female band Calamity Jane, which had minor
hits with 1981’s “Send Me Somebody To Love” and a 1982 cover of the
Beatles’ “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” His two other sons, Gary and
Harry, are not involved in the music business. |