Johnny Moore born 20 October 1906

Johnny Moore (October 20, 1906, Austin, Texas – January 6, 1969); was an Rhythm & Blues guitar player better known for his group Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, who were a popular African American vocal group in the 1940s and 1950s. 

Born John Dudley Moore in Los Angeles, California he was the older brother of jazz 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 Johnny Moore joined a group called the Blazes. Fired by that group in 1942, Moore decided to form his own group, which he named 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 Three Blazers began recording in 1944 for the small Atlas label. 

The Three Blazers began winning amateur talent contests with alarming regularity, however their first recording deal was almost entirely due to the reputation of Oscar Moore: Robert Scherman of Atlas Records had recently lost Nat "King" Cole to Capitol and was eager to record another rhythm trio in a similar style, when Oscar told him of his brother's unrecorded group, so Scherman agreed to record the Blazers if Oscar would play with them. 

The records were subsequently released as by "Oscar Moore with The Three Blazer s" which upset Johnny terribly, and so the boys were soon looking for another record deal! Johnny Moore was fiercely independent and notoriously distrusting of the recording business - he reportedly never once signed an exclusive contract for him or his band - and in retrospect this may have held the group back; even when, by 1946, it was clear that the trio's selling-point was the handsome young man at the piano, he refused to change the group's billing and insisted it remained "Johnny Moore's Three Blazers". 

The fact that Charles Brown was the group's main asset became obvious from the recordings made in 1945 for Leon Rene's Exclusive label and the Mesner brothers' fledgling Philo/Aladdin Records which began to garner big local sales, culminating with "Drifting Blues" a #2 Billboard R&B hit in 1946. Moore's "non-exclusive" policy resulted in the trio hopping between Modern and Exclusive from 1946 to 1948, and enjoying an unending chart presence in the Billboard Top 10 with hits such as "Sunny Road" (#4), "So Long" (#4), "New Orleans Blues" (#4), "Changeable Woman Blues" (#5), "Groovy Movie Blues" (#10), "More Than You Know" (#4), and particularly the perennial "Merry Christmas Baby" (#3 1947, #8 1948 and #9 1949). 

                              

In 1948, frustrated by his lack of recognition and financial reward, Brown left the group for a successful solo career. The remaining two Blazers continued with a succession of vocalists, notably Lee Barnes, Billy Valentine, Floyd Dixon, Mari Jones, Nelson Alexander and, in the mid-1950s, Frankie Ervin. After Nat King Cole broke up his original King Cole Trio, Oscar Moore played as a guest with brother Johnny's group. Johnny Moore and the Blazers continued to record for small labels until the early 1960s. 

Lee Barnes and Billy Valentine were used on the trio's RCA Victor recordings during 1949-50, Floyd Dixon covered the Aladdin and Combo sessions, and Frankie Ervin sang on the Modern, Blaze and Hollywood recordings from 1953 to 1955. During the 1950s, Moore's main squeeze Mari Jones was also utilized on sessions for the Aladdin, Modern, R&B.. Moore also continued to hit the Billboard R&B chart, albeit not nearly as frequently as his ex-employee, and scored with "Where Can I Find My Baby" (#8 1949), "Walkin' Blues" (#7 1949), "I'll Miss You" (#15 1949), "Dragnet Blues" (#8 1953) and "Johnny Ace's Last Letter" (#15 1955). 

During the rock 'n' roll revolution, like many of his contemporaries, Moore’s cool, sophisticated, melodic blues guitar was out of favour with R&B fans and the recording deals were few and far between; for old times’ sake, Charles Brown had Johnny and Eddie Williams accompany him on a couple of his sessions during 1953/54 and, for the same reason, Leon Rene recorded him again for a solitary Rendezvous 45 in 1959, while during the 1960s, odd releases came out on tiny labels like Lilly and Cenco. 

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 with his own group, bear witness that he was one of the unsung greats of his instrument.

Moore recorded with various groups after the Three Blazers broke up, but was not professionally active for a number of years before his death, though he did teach young musicians. He had only one kidney, which complicated his ability to recover from the flu, and he died of kidney failure at his Los Angeles home on January 6, 1969. No obituary was published upon his death.

 (Edited from blackcat.nl, AllMusic & TSHA on line)