Lyrad's Random 10

Alex Moore was one of the first of his Texas contemporaries to record his piano blues, but he scarcely recorded anything after those first few cuts in 1929. Obscure, but highly skilled, Moore pounded the keys hard with a rhythm that accompanied his strong, full tenor vocals. He earned the nickname "Whistlin'" Alex Moore for his extended and, apparently piercing, whistle solos between verses (though I haven't heard any cuts where he actually does this). Like so many blues artists nationwide, he was essentially forgotten after those early years, and worked his regular everyday jobs until his retirement in 1965, though he consistently played in bars and took engagements the whole time. Like so many others also, he was rediscovered in the mid-60s during the big European blues revival and, now retired from working, toured with the American Folk Blues Festival throughout Europe. In those years, he was contracted for what turned out to be the majority of his recordings and, with his strength of voice still intact, made something of a late career of performing. In the late '80s, before his death in 1989, Dallas and the state of Texas honored him by making his birthday, November 22, "Alex Moore Day."

From his early years as a delivery boy tinkering around on white folks' pianos to his last days, the piano was everything to him, to the point of saying that the reason he never married was that he was too much in love with the piano. Whatever he says, I'm sure there were other reasons, but he was an excellent artist who deftly mixed jazz, blues and ragtime into one of the best-played examples of early Texas piano blues.

1. Alex Moore--Come Back Baby
2. Jesus Lizard--The Best Parts
3. John Lee Hooker--I'll Never Trust Your Love Again
4. Perry Bradford--I've Learned To Do Without You Now
5. The Roots--Thought @ Work
6. Tom Waits--Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six
7. Fredrik Soegaard--Multiverse for Guitar, Percussion, Computer and Tape (Soegaard Ensemble)
8. John Prine--Aimless Love
9. Roy Budd--Kidnapped (from the sountrack to Paper Tiger)
10. White Zombie--Creature of the Wheel