Arnold Moore

Arnold Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore (November 8, 1913 – May 19, 2004) was an American blues and gospel singer, songwriter, radio disc jockey, community leader and pastor, later known as Reverend Gatemouth Moore. During his career as a recording artist, Moore worked with Bennie Moten, Tommy Douglas and Walter Barnes, and his songs were recorded by B.B. King and Rufus Thomas. He was noted for his mellow singing voice, much in the style of Billy Eckstine. He toured widely but settled in Clarksdale, Mississippi, around 1934. but Moore himself repeated a story that at a performance in Atlanta a drunken woman told him to "sing it, you gatemouth sonofabitch". He sang with the bands of Bennie Moten and Walter Barnes. who regarded Moore as a major influence and as "one of the greatest blues singers ever". In Chicago, he appeared regularly at the Rhumboogie and at the Club DeLisa. At the latter club, in December 1948, he shocked clubgoers by stopping his performance of "I Ain't Mad at You Pretty Baby" and singing an old spiritual. Moore said, "Folks started screaming. They thought I had lost my mind. I just singing and crying 'Shine on Me'... I walked off [stage] and walked right out the club and folks were hollering and screaming. When I walked out to the bar, one of the greatest preachers in Chicago was sitting out there and said, 'Gate, I be waiting on you'." He was also featured in the documentary film The Road to Memphis, directed and photographed by Richard Pearce), a part of the 2003 series The Blues, of which Martin Scorsese was the executive producer.

He died in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 2004 at the age of 90.