Bob Moore Orchestra

Bio:

from
The Billboard Book of
ONE-HIT WONDERS
by WAYNE JANCIK (1990, 2004) 
page 111 

Bob Moore
MEXICO
(Boudleaux Bryant)
Monument 446
No. 7 October 2, 1961 

Bob Moore was born in the heart of country & western music, in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 30, 1932. As if answering a calling from the holy soil itself, Bob took to playing the bass fiddle, and after years of practice found himself laying down that bass foundation on countless C & W tours and recordings. As an accompanist, Bob toured the land with a young and wild Elvis Presley, country folkie Red Foley, and teen queens Connie Francis and Brenda Lee.

In 1959, Monument Records mainman Fred Foster noticed Moore's ability to take charge in the studio yet fit in well with almost any sound, and hired him to be the label's music director. Roy Orbison had just joined the Monument label, and it was Bob who created the plush and throbbing orchestral ambience of every one of those "Big O" soap operettas. Foster liked what he heard, and decided to cut Moore loose to see what the kid could do as a solo act.

After a mildly successful initial release, "(Theme From) 'My Three Sons,'" Moore recorded an instrumental by Boudleaux Bryant called "Mexico." In sound, Moore's lone top 40 hit anticipated by a full year the style that would keep Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass all over the charts for years to come.

Throughout the remainder of the decade, Moore, on Monument and later Hickory, tried to keep up his momentum, with little success. An album entitled Mexico and Other Great Hits did sell well, but only on the strength of his big pop moment.

For a session man who played with rock and rollers like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob had a brassy yet tame sound on his solo sides. But listen to Jerry Lee Lewis' "What Did I Say?" – the pounding bass on that number reveals another, more primal side of Bob Moore. This is the Bob Moore found on records by Carl Perkins, J.J. Cale, Moby Grape, Pearls Before Swine, Harvey Mandel, Kenny Rogers, Don McLean, and post-Righteous Brothers Bill Medley. Bob Dylan also made use of Moore's talents on the Self-Portrait (1970) and Dylan (1973) albums.

PLEASE VISIT THE COMPANION PAGE, BOB MOORE ON HICKORY

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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 the Miss 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.

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