Lee Moore
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As a recording artist, one might conclude that his influence has been minimal, but as a radio performer and deejay, Lee Moore has been a quite significant figure in the development of Country music. Shortly before his death in 1997, Lee was presented with both a U.S. flag and a New York state flag that had been flown over their respective Capitols in his honor. For more than a half century, he entertained audiences with his tasteful, straight-forward approach to traditional Country songs to the simple accompaniment of either his own guitar or Dobro. Lee Moore died on August 17, 1997.
A traditionally oriented Country vocalist, Lee Moore attained a considerable following via radio from 1935. He often sang duets with his wife Juanita in the 40’s and 50’s. For some two decades from 1953, Lee also achieved fame as one of the pioneer all-night deejays from WWVA Wheeling. Moreover, Lee’s origins, while rural, reflected neither a Southern nor a mountain heritage. As a youth in south central Ohio, Lee first gained an interest in music through hearing Hawaiian steel guitarists on network radio and early hillbilly broadcasts from WAIU, in nearby Columbus. He later made his first radio broadcast from that Ohio city. After completing high school in 1932, Lee joined a traveling show group known as Doc Schneider’s Yodeling Texas Cowboys, journeying at least as far as Texas with them. After returning home, Lee landed a radio program at WPAY in the Ohio River city of Portsmouth. Later, he moved upstream to WCMI Ashland, Kentucky, where he served as a featured vocalist with a group known as the Mountain Melody Boys. In 1937, he went to WRHS Charleston where he served in a similar capacity with Buddy Starcher’s Mountaineers. Lee also met a girl from Jackson County, Kentucky, who sang at the station, Juanita Picklesimer (b. 1917), known as the "Gal from the Hills." Lee and Juanita married on November 15, 1938, and formed a duet act. Lee and Juanita worked together as a radio team for some 20 years and won wide acceptance with their down-home-style harmonies, which included numerous older ballads and sacred songs. Lee continued to project a cowboy image on stage, even wearing two holstered pistols, while Juanita contributed some fine original sacred songs such as The Legend Of The Dogwood Tree and When Angels Rolled The Stone Away (popularized on record by Wilma Lee Cooper and Molly O’Day, respectively). For a dozen years, they followed the traditional lifestyle of Country radio entertainers of the time, moving to a new place every year or two. During this era they did daily broadcasts from such locales as WHIS Bluefield, West Virginia; WMMN Fairmont, West Virginia; WSVA Harrisonburg, Virginia; KFNF Shenandoah, Iowa; WROL Knoxville, Tennessee; WPAQ Mt. Airy, North Carolina and finally at the end of 1949, to WWVA Wheeling, West Virginia. On May 1, 1940, the couple had a son, Roger Lee Moore who became part of their act, even as a small child. The Moores found a more or less permanent home at the World’s Original Jamboree, where they did both daily broadcasts and Saturday night shows as well. In 1953, Lee also took a late-night deejay position with the station gaining a near legendary status as the "Coffee Drinking Night Hawk," a job he filled with only a brief break until 1969. The duo never recorded until 1953, when they began making discs for the small New Jersey-based, Cross Country label. These consisted of some twenty sides nearly evenly divided between duets and solo vocals by Lee. Some of these numbers later appeared in Canada on an album released by Point Records. The best known title, an old comic song from 1893, The Cat Came Back, has virtually become Moore’s trademark. Lee and Juanita split in 1960, after which Lee continued as a solo performer, remaining with the Jamboree through 1974. In the early 60’s Lee did some additional recording, primarily for such smaller companies as Wheeling, Mark, Essgee and Emperor. Somewhat later he did two albums each for the ARC label in Canada and Rural Rhythm in the U.S. The latter release had full Bluegrass band accompaniment furnished by Red Smiley’s Bluegrass Cut-Ups. An unreleased album for the Texas-based Bluebonnett label eventually came to Germany on Cattle Records. In 1974, having remarried and settled in the Troy, New York, suburb of Wynantskill, Moore left the Jamboree after a quarter century. He continued working as a musician primarily in the Northeastern states. He made additional single recordings for such labels as Fontone, Tenn-Cann, and Revonah, as well as another album for Cattle.
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