I had initially intended to begin slowly ramping up back into activity while covering my yearly trip to Muddy Roots Music Festival, however I got extremely sick with a sore throat. Many of my dear friends that attend that festival have kids and I didn’t want to spread strep throat to my friends.
Speaking of friends, this brings me to the subject of one of my oldest friends in the business, and a true local legend of the Cincinnati Ohio area, who now resides in Texas. Dallas Moore has been a hero of mine for a long long time, and as a collector much of his back catalog before his album “Blessed Be The Bad Ones” is so rare that they are considered holy grail finds in the wild.
Another direction of this article is in regards to another friend and festival that occurs in Tennessee called the North Springs Music Festival. Folks, this festival is growing by leaps and bounds in it’s own right. So, when their people reached out to me to have a visit with Dallas Moore about playing the pre party, I jumped right on board to tackle the job.
I met this man in 2014 at a place called Altamont, which was also in Tennessee and was a pivotal point in my journal career. I had relaunched the website at that very festival during Kara Clark whom now provides entertainment on a cruise ship! Dallas Moore was one of those individuals I finally got to meet!
So on this article I am going to focus more on who he is, and what he does to embellish local Country Music with his work. This will hopefully bring more people to an understanding of what this pre party will bring to the table. However, I will for sure be bringing more news on the festival as it approaches, so keep on checking back for more.
GHC : So Mr. Dallas, what do you all have going on right now?
Dallas Moore : Well, we played up in Fort Worth last night and got home about 5am. I am off today doing podcasts and appearances, and you were first on the list.
GHC : And now next weekend you’re playing the North Springs Music Festival, correct?
Dallas Moore : Yes, I’m doing a solo acoustic act that Thursday night.
GHC: Tell us about the new album Gems And Jams.
Dallas Moore: Well the album Gems And Jams, it’s my eighteenth album since 1996. It’s a fifteen song acoustic album, just me and a guitar. It was produced by myself and Brian DeBruler at Sol Records, it has no overdubs.
I used my mom’s old guitar that I inherited and it’s a collection of new songs, and some older deep cuts from albums that have been out of print for quite awhile. Many of those songs on my older records, that label went away but I own all of the songs and the publishing on them.
GHC: I’m glad, because as a fan I wish it would be re issued. If you find earlier stuff like Can’t Tame A Wildcat at a record store..that’s a holy grail find!
Dallas Moore: Well that’s what I intended to do, bring back some of those old songs under a new element. There is a song on there called “Glad To See You Gone” that I wrote in 1994, and the only time it ever appeared on a record was in my first album. It was called “My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys” and it came out in 1996. After the label went out it went out of print, and was pretty much lost to the world.
Funny thing is like American Songwriter Magazine featured that song like it was a new song, and I thought that was really cool..almost like a brand new lease on life.
GHC : You know I can’t count how many places I have seen you play, I know I have seen you in ten states now. Is the Texas music scene different from Cincinnati?
Dallas Moore: Well for the last eight years, I have been living half in Ohio, and half in Texas. My band all lives in Texas in fact. I’ve got Mike Bernal who played with Dale Watson on drums. I have William Gage on lead guitar, he is from here in San Antonio and on bass I use Ted Russell Kamp from Shooter Jennings band and Sister Mandy Shucher.
The whole band plays bigger shows and of course I still play a ton of dates, about 300 a year. I do many shows solo acoustic too.
GHC: Well, what people don’t realize is you’re a one man show in your own right. What I mean by that is when you go into your version of “Whipping Post” you juxtapose Classical Music pieces and also riffs like Slayer “Raining Blood” then you go back into the song.You’re a regular one man show, like Scott H. Biram you don’t need anybody else.
Dallas Moore: And that part of the show has evolved over the years. And it’s definitely more fun now than it’s ever been because of how much it has evolved into what it is today.
GHC: Let’s talk about North Springs Music Festival.
Dallas Moore: I’ll be doing a solo show there with songs off this new album, and my last full band album “No God In Juarez” which features all songs written by Billy Gant. And of course the ones I play at almost every show, and I usually do pretty long shows. I have no shortage of material.
GHC: I wanted to make sure I put this in the article, will you be able to hang around for the other two days? A lot of people don’t understand you can’t loose two days of tour. You have to keep rolling in this business.
Dallas Moore: No I’m sorry I can’t but I have to play the night before in Cincinnati and the night after, I’m in Arkansas then I’m back in Texas. After that I have a week in Arizona and a week in California.
GHC: North Springs, it’s a great festival that is growing. Have you ever been there?
Dallas Moore: No. Actually we were playing in Texas in the Stockyards and Dustin and his wife happened to be there on my birthday show. The pre party show is being hosted by Chris Edwards over at Mountain View Talent, and they all know me and invited me to play. I’m really looking forward to it. The routing and logistics worked out perfectly on both ends.
I am still playing in Cincinnati area places like I’m playing the Southgate House that weekend. That is the first time I have played up there since July, But we really try to get up there once a month and we still have a home there, my wife’s family has a farm up there so we still base operations up there. We started this last tour in Florida and ended up in Portland Oregon. So, we are working everywhere.