Scotty Moore

For other uses, see Scott Moore (disambiguation).
Scotty Moore
Birth name Winfield Scott Moore III
Born (1931-12-27)December 27, 1931
Gadsden, Tennessee, U.S.
Died June 28, 2016(2016-06-28) (aged 84)
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Genres Rock and roll
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Guitar
Years active 1950s–2009
Labels Sun
Associated acts
Website www.scottymoore.net

Winfield Scott "Scotty" Moore III (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016) was an American guitarist and recording engineer. He is best known for his backing of Elvis Presley in the first part of his career, between 1954 and the beginning of Elvis's Hollywood years.

Rock critic Dave Marsh credits Moore with the invention of power chording, on the 1957 Presley song "Jailhouse Rock", the intro of which Moore and drummer D.J. Fontana, according to the latter, "copped from a '40s swing version of 'The Anvil Chorus'."[1] Moore was ranked 29th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2011.[2] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015. The Rolling Stones' lead guitarist Keith Richards has said of Moore, "When I heard "Heartbreak Hotel", I knew what I wanted to do in life. It was as plain as day. All I wanted to do in the world was to be able to play and sound like that. Everyone else wanted to be Elvis, I wanted to be Scotty." [3]

Biography

Scotty Moore was born near Gadsden, Tennessee to Mattie (née Hefley) and Winfield Scott Moore as the youngest of 14 children.[4][5] He learned to play the guitar from family and friends at eight years of age. Although underage when he enlisted, Moore served in the United States Navy, in China and Korea, from 1948 through January 1952.[6]

Moore's early background was in jazz and country music. A fan of guitarist Chet Atkins, Moore led a group called the "Starlite Wranglers" before Sam Phillips at Sun Records put him together with then teenage Elvis Presley. The trio was completed with bass player Bill Black, who brought a "rhythmic propulsion" that much pleased Phillips.[7] In 1954 Moore and Black accompanied Elvis on what would become the first legendary Presley hit, the Sun Studios session cut of "That's All Right", a recording regarded as a seminal event in rock and roll history.

The session, held the evening of July 5, 1954, proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night. As they were about to give up and go home, Presley took his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number, Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open ... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And we said, 'We don't know.' 'Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'" Phillips quickly began taping; this was the sound he had been looking for.[8] During the next few days, the trio recorded a bluegrass number, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky", again in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed "slapback". A single was pressed with "That's All Right" on the A side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the reverse.[9]

Phillips rhythm-centered vision led him to steer Moore away from the pretty finger-picking style of Chet Atkins, which he deemed fine for pop or country, but not for the simple, gutsy sound Phillips was aiming at.[10] "Simplify" was the keyword.[11]

By his performance at The Louisiana Hayride of October 1954, Black and Moore were called the Blue Moon Boys.[12]

For a time, Moore served as Elvis's personal manager.[13]:85 They were later joined by drummer D.J. Fontana. Beginning in July 1954, the Blue Moon Boys toured and recorded throughout the American South and, as Presley's popularity rose, they toured the United States and made appearances in various Presley television shows and motion pictures. The Blue Moon Boys, including Moore, appear in the few 1955 home movie clips that survive of Elvis before he achieved national recognition. Moore, Black, and Fontana also appear on the Dorsey Brothers, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and Ed Sullivan live TV shows of January 1956 to January 1957. Moore and Fontana also reunited on the 1960 Timex TV special with Frank Sinatra welcoming Elvis's return from the Army.

Moore played on many of Presley's most famous recordings, including "That's All Right", "Good Rockin' Tonight", "Milk Cow Blues Boogie", "Baby Let's Play House", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Mystery Train", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Hound Dog", "Too Much", "Jailhouse Rock", and "Hard Headed Woman". He called his solo on "Hound Dog" "ancient psychedelia".[14]

During the filming and recording of Loving You in Hollywood in early 1957, Moore and Black drove the boredom away by jamming with Presley in between takes, but they usually saw little of Presley, who stayed only a couple of floors away from them. They grew hurt and resentful at the separation, which they came to perceive as willfully organized.[15]

They did not accompany Presley on the soundtrack recordings for his first movie, Love Me Tender, because 20th Century Fox had refused him to use his own band, with the excuse that they could not play country.[16] By December 1956 they were experiencing financial difficulties, because there had been few performances since August: when there were, they received $200 a week, but only $100 when there were not. Moore and his wife were forced to move in with her three sisters and brother-in-law. In an interview with the Memphis Press-Scimitar that December, they spoke about this and about their lack of contact with Presley himself. The reason for the interview was their announcement that management had given them permission to record an instrumental album of their own, which RCA would release. Such permission was needed in order to appear as a group without Presley.[17]

During Presley's 1957 tour of Canada, concert promoter Oscar Davis offered to represent them as his manager. Moore and Black, who had seen Presley become a millionaire while still earning $200 a week themselves, were willing to work with Davis but backing vocalists the Jordanaires were not, because they did not trust him.[18]

Tension came to a climax right after the September 1957 sessions for Presley's first Christmas album. Moore and Black had been promised an opportunity to cut tracks after the session, on Presley's studio time. Yet when the session was over, they were told to pack up. That same evening, the duo wrote a letter of resignation. They had only had one raise in two years, and with the lack of personal appearances had to live off $100 a week. They also felt the Colonel was working against them. They had been denied virtually all access to Presley, and felt as if "they were no longer even permitted to talk to him."[19] Colonel Parker did not interfere, but RCA executive Steve Sholes, who had little regard for the ability of Presley's band, hoped the separation would be permanent. Back in Memphis, a journalist found out and interviewed the duo. Presley responded with a press statement wishing them good luck, saying things could have been worked out if they had come to him instead of bringing it to the press. In an accompanying interview, Presley revealed that during the last two years people had tried to convince him to get rid of his band, so from his point of view he had stayed loyal to them.[20]

Presley was scheduled to appear in Tupelo within the next two weeks and started to audition new musicians. He performed with Hank Garland on guitar and D.J. Fontana's friend Chuck Wiginton on bass, but despite their musical ability it didn't feel the same to him. The week after his Tupelo engagement he hired them back on a per diem basis. In the meantime, the duo had played "a miserable two-week engagement at the Dallas State Fair". Moore declared there were no hard feelings, though Presley himself, according to biographer Guralnick, seems to have taken a more melancholic view. One day, Guralnick writes, Presley heard "Jailhouse Rock" on the radio "and declared, 'Elvis Presley and his one-man band,' with a rueful shake of his head."[21]

Moore and the Blue Moon Boys perform (and have additional small walk-on and speaking roles) with Elvis in four of his movies (Loving You, Jailhouse Rock, King Creole, and G.I. Blues) filmed in 1957, 1958, and 1960.

Early in 1958, when Elvis was drafted, Scotty began working at Fernwood Records and produced a hit record called "Tragedy" for Thomas Wayne Perkins, brother of Johnny Cash guitarist Luther Perkins.

In 1960, Moore commenced recording sessions with Elvis at RCA, and also served as production manager at Sam Phillips Recording Service, which involved supervising all aspects of studio operation. Moore played on such Presley songs as "Fame And Fortune", "Such A Night", "Frankfort Special", "Surrender", "I Feel So Bad", "Rock-A-Hula Baby", "Kiss Me Quick", "Good Luck Charm", "She's Not You", "(You're The) Devil in Disguise", and "Bossa Nova Baby".

In 1964, Moore released a solo album on Epic Records called The Guitar That Changed the World, played using his Gibson Super 400. For this effort he was fired by Sam Phillips. Moore reunited with Fontana and Presley for the NBC television special known as the '68 Comeback Special, again with his Gibson Super 400 which was also played by Presley. This special was the last time these musicians would play with Presley, and for Moore it was the last time he ever saw him.[22]

Style and influence

Moore's playing on his Gibson with his unique finger-picking style using a thumbpick, as on the Sun and early RCA recordings, represented a move of the Chet Atkins style into a more rockabilly mode. Moore's best performances are often considered precedent-setting.

Of Presley's first single "That's Alright Mama", critic Dave Marsh writes that "Moore's guitar--especially the solo--toughens the song up and forces it to rock."[23] Though Marsh credits Presley with introducing "the vocal stutter" on "Baby Let's Play House", "Other than that, it's guitarist Scotty Moore's show, and he sets a few precedents of his own."[24] Of the other Sun recordings, Marsh cites the "urgent Scotty Moore guitar lick" as a standout element of "Mystery Train",[25] while "Good Rockin' Tonight" displays his "stinging guitar".[26]

In Marsh's description, the teamwork of Moore and other musicians turns the 1957 single and movie title song "Jailhouse Rock" into an "enduring smash for at least three reasons: the great walking bass, Scotty Moore's invention of power chording, and D.J. Fontana's drumming, which is halfway between strip joint rhumba and the perfect New Orleans shuffle."[27]

On the 1961, post-Army Presley single "Little Sister", "Scotty Moore comes up with his greatest post-Sun guitar lick and not only converts a comparatively humdrum Pomus-Shuman teen love triangle number into the best of Elvis's early sixties hits, but (together with D.J. Fontana's heavy-footed thunderation) gives more than a few pointers toward the metallic rock to come."[28] According to Presley discographer Ernst Jorgensen, however, Hank Garland is the lead guitarist on the song while Moore plays acoustic guitar.[29]

Moore is given credit as a pioneer rock 'n' roll lead guitarist, though he characteristically downplayed his own innovative role in the development of the style. "It had been there for quite a while", recalled Moore. "Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of thing up around Jackson, and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old."[30] Paul Friedlander describes the defining elements of rockabilly, which he similarly characterizes as "essentially ... an Elvis Presley construction": "the raw, emotive, and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling [of] the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar [of] country".[31] In "That's All Right", the Presley trio's first record, Scotty Moore's guitar solo, "a combination of Merle Travis–style country finger-picking, double-stop slides from acoustic boogie, and blues-based bent-note, single-string work, is a microcosm of this fusion."[32]

Many popular guitarists cite Moore as the performer that brought the lead guitarist to a dominant role in a rock 'n' roll band. Although some lead guitarists/vocalists, such as Chuck Berry and blues legend BB King, had gained popularity by the 1950s, Presley rarely played his own lead while performing, instead providing rhythm guitar and leaving the lead duties to Moore. As a guitarist, Moore was a noticeable presence in Presley's performances, despite his introverted demeanor. He became an inspiration to many subsequent popular guitarists, including George Harrison, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.[33] While Moore was working on his memoir with co-author James L. Dickerson, Richards told Dickerson, "Everyone else wanted to be Elvis—I wanted to be Scotty."[13]:xiii Richards has stated many times (Rolling Stone magazine, Life autobiography) that he could never figure out how to play the "stop time" break and figure that Moore plays on "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" (Sun), and that he hopes it will remain a mystery.

Equipment

While with Presley, Moore initially played a Gibson ES-295 (nicknamed "The Guitar that Changed the World")[34] before switching to a Gibson L5[35] and subsequently a Gibson Super 400.[36]

One of the key pieces of equipment in Moore's sound on many of the recordings with Elvis, besides his guitars, was the use of the Ray Butts EchoSonic (first used by Chet Atkins), a guitar amplifier with a tape echo built in, which allowed him to take his trademark slapback echo on the road.[36]

Death

Moore died on June 28, 2016, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 84.[33]

Compositions

Scotty Moore co-wrote the songs "My Kind of Carrying On" and "Now She Cares No More" which were released as Sun 202 on Sun Records in 1954 when he was a member of the group Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers with Bill Black as the bassist. He co-wrote the instrumental "Have Guitar Will Travel" in 1958 with Bill Black, which was released as a 45 single, 107, on the Fernwood Records label.[37]

Awards

For his pioneering contribution, Moore has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[38]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Ernst Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998, p. 92. ISBN 0312263155
  2. ↑ "100 Greatest Guitarists: Scotty Moore". Rolling Stone. ISSN 0035-791X. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Elvis guitarist Scotty Moore dies aged 84". BBC News. June 29, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  4. ↑ Sweeting, Adam (June 30, 2016). "Scotty Moore obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Scotty Moore 1931 - 2016: The guitarist who made 'the King' rock". Daily Express. July 2, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  6. ↑ Dave Rubin (November 1, 2015). Inside Rock Guitar: Four Decades of the Greatest Electric Rock Guitarists. Hal Leonard. pp. 25–26. ISBN 978-1-4950-5639-0.
  7. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 95
  8. ↑ Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Little, Brown, 1994, p. 94-97 ISBN 0-316-33225-9
  9. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 102–04
  10. ↑ Jorgensen (1998), p. 18
  11. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 95
  12. ↑ Jorgensen (1998), p. 19
  13. 1 2 Moore, Scotty; Dickerson, James L. (2005). That's Alright, Elvis:The Untold Story of Elvis's First Guitarist and Manager. New York: G. Schirmer Inc. ISBN 978-0-8256-7319-1.
  14. ↑ Quoted in Guralnick (1994), p. 298
  15. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 391
  16. ↑ Jorgensen (1998), p. 57-58
  17. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 378
  18. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 400-01
  19. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 432
  20. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 434
  21. ↑ Guralnick (1994), p. 435
  22. ↑ Guralnick (1999), p. 317
  23. ↑ Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. London: Penguin Books, 1989, p. 213. ISBN 0140121080
  24. ↑ Marsh (1989), p. 317
  25. ↑ Marsh(1989), p. 16
  26. ↑ Marsh (1989), p. 46.
  27. ↑ Marsh (1989), p. 540
  28. ↑ Marsh (1989), p. 288
  29. ↑ Jorgensen (1998), p. 159
  30. ↑ Cited in Peter Guralnick, Lost Highway: Journeys & Arrivals of American Musicians (1989), p.104.
  31. ↑ Paul Friedlander, Paul, Rock and Roll: A Social History. Westview, 1996, p. 45. ISBN 0813327253
  32. ↑ Friedlander (1996), p. 45
  33. 1 2 Grimes, William (June 28, 2006). "Scotty Moore, Hard-Driving Guitarist Who Backed Elvis Presley, Dies at 84". The New York Times. p. A23.
  34. ↑ Marcus, Greil; Guralnick, Peter; Sante, Luc; Gordon, Robert (2011). Rockabilly: The Twang Heard 'Round the World: The Illustrated History. Voyageur Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-7603-4062-2.
  35. ↑ Carter, Walter (2007). Gibson Electric Guitar Book – Seventy Years of Classic Guitars. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 42. ISBN 978-0879308957.
  36. 1 2 Hunter, Dave (2005). Guitar Rigs: Classic Guitar and Amp Combinations. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 40, 54. ISBN 978-0-87930-851-3.
  37. ↑ Unterberger, Richie. "Scotty Moore Biography". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved February 28, 2014.
  38. ↑ Kreps, Daniel (June 28, 2016). "Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley Guitarist, Dead at 84". Rolling Stone. ISSN 0035-791X.
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