scotty moore

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by Richie UnterbergerScotty Moore is one of the great pioneers of rock guitar. As the guitarist on Elvis Presleys Sun Recordings, he may have done more than anyone else to establish the basic vocabulary of rockabilly guitar licks, as heard on classic singles like Thats All Right, Good Rockin Tonight, Baby Lets Play House, and Mystery Train. Moore took the stinging licks common to both country music and blues, and not only combined elements of country indeed, on Sun releases they were billed as Elvis Presley, Scotty, and Bill. Whats more, Moore became Presleys first manager, in a July 1954 contract that identified Moore as the bandleader. The trio played together live and with increasing success on the Southern circuit, and inevitably, as Presley started to attract wide attention and come into his own as a frontman, more powerful interests edged Moore out of his business role in the band. First Bob Neal, and then Colonel Tom Parker, took over Presleys management. By the summer of 1955, Moore and Black became salaried employees of the act rather than the partners. Drummer D.J. Fontana was added to the band shortly afterwards, and the musicians continued to record, and play live with, Elvis when the singer began recording with RCA in 1956. While additional musicians on RCA sessions would sometimes make Moores role less prominent than it had been at Sun, Scotty still added a great deal to Elvis earliest and best RCA discs. There was the chilling, fiercely echoing solo on Heartbreak Hotel, the almost avant-garde mad runs up and down the scales on the solos of Hound Dog and Too Much, the brief but blasting one on Jailhouse Rock, and the bubbly one on My Baby Left Me, which was as pure and sparkling as anything Moore had played at Sun. Still, Moore and Black became less close to Elvis both personally and professionally. Some biographers have speculated that Parker viewed anyone who had a close personal and artistic relationship with Elvis as a threat to his own power over the singer and that the manager tried to drive a wedge between Elvis and the other musicians, or even force Moore and Black out of the picture. For the soundtrack of Love Me Tender, Scotty and Bill were not allowed to record with Presley. (They did help on other soundtracks from the period, as well as appearing in some Presley movies.) Frustrated with their limited salaried incomes as Presley became a superstar and earned more and more, Moore and Black gave Presley letters of resignation in September 1957. Although this was patched up after about a month, tension remained, and in any case Moore and Black were out of work again early in 1958, when Presley was drafted. Moore began working at Fernwood Records in production and got a big national hit with Thomas Waynes Tragedy in 1959. When Elvis returned from the Army in 1960, Moore resumed playing sessions for him, although Black was not involved any longer, having started a successful solo career as the leader of the instrumental Bill Black Combo. There wasnt a lot of income from either Fernwood or Elvis, though, so Moore began working for Phillips as a production manager in 1960, continuing to work with Elvis occasionally. In 1964, perhaps influenced by the success of former bandmate Black, Moore released an entire album of instrumentals for Epic in 1964, consisting of versions of songs recorded by Elvis in the 1950s, on which (with one exception) Scotty had played. Although Moore played well on the LP, it was rather pointless given the superiority of the Elvis versions and sold few copies. In March of 1964, Moore was fired by Phillips, and the guitarist moved to Nashville to work at Music City Records as an engineer, as well as doing some producing. His ongoing work with Presley as a session guitarist finally came to an end in the late 60s, although he did appear on-stage with Elvis on the singers heralded 1968 television comeback special. Moore continued to work as an engineer, occasionally crossing paths in this capacity with unexpected clients such as Ringo Starr, Tracy Nelson, Mother Earth, and the Holy Modal Rounders. He got back into playing guitar again, after a layoff of about 25 years, on recordings and live shows with Carl Perkins in the early 90s. In 1997, he did a tribute album to Elvis Presley with D.J. Fontana, All the Kings Men, which included appearances by Keith Richards, Levon Helm, Jeff Beck, and Ronnie Wood. The presence of such heavyweights was a testament to the influence of Moore on other guitarists, not just rockabilly ones, but also rockers of a later generation, such as Richards. The Rolling Stones guitarist, indeed, is quite vocal and enthusiastic in his praise of Moore, even saying that it was hearing Heartbreak Hotel that made him want to devote his life to playing guitar. Moores life story, both with and without Elvis, is recounted in the autobiography Thats Alright, Elvis, co-written with James Dickerson. (更多)