Johnny Moore
b. John Dudley Moore, 20 October 1906, Austin, Texas, USA, d. 6 January 1969, Los Angeles, California, USA. The elder brother of guitarist Oscar Moore, Johnny began playing guitar with his violinist father's string band in 1934 and moved to the west coast, where Oscar joined Nat ‘King’ Cole's Trio and Moore joined a group called the Blazes. Fired by that group in 1942, Moore decided to form his own group which he christened the Three Blazers. This featured Eddie Williams on bass and, briefly, pianist Garland Finney. When Finney left the trio the following year, Moore hired Charles Brown, a singer and pianist he had seen at an amateur talent show, and the Blazers began recording in 1944 for the small Atlas label. This was followed in 1945-48 by extensive recording for Exclusive, Philo/Aladdin and Modern. During this period the Blazers became a household name with huge hits like Driftin' Blues, Merry Christmas Baby, Sunny Road and More Than You Know. When Oscar Moore joined the group in 1947, it was the start of several major problems which resulted in a split, and Moore tried to replace Charles Brown with a succession of soundalikes. The most successful of these was Billy Valentine, who took the Blazers back to the R&B charts with RCA-Victor's Walkin' Blues in 1949. After his 1949-50 association with Victor, Johnny Moore's Blazers recorded for the gamut of Los Angeles labels, but was successful only with 1953's novelty Dragnet Blues on Modern and 1955's morbid Johnny Ace's Last Letter on Hollywood. Johnny Moore and Charles Brown were reconciled in the mid-50s and the real Three Blazers reunited for records on Aladdin, Hollywood and Cenco, however, by that time Moore's cool, sophisticated, melodic blues guitar was out of favour with R&B fans. He was an inspiration to most of the electric blues guitarists of the late '40s and early '50s (he is numbered among B.B. King's Top 10 guitarists of all time), and his solos on recordings by Ivory Joe Hunter, Floyd Dixon and Charles Brown, as well as tracks under his own group, bear witness that he was one of the unsung greats of his instrument.