Photo courtesy Clay Shorkey, Texas Music Museum (1899-1989) Birthplace: Dallas Genre: Barrelhouse piano Influenced: Many Texas barrelhouse and blues pianists Other Sites: Alex Moore at Rounder

Although in 1929 Alex Moore was one of the first of the Texas barrelhouse piano artists to record and continue to play throughout the thirties, forties, and fifties, his stature as a classic barrelhouse performer went largely unacknowledged until the 1960s, when Chris Strachwitz began recording his work for the Arhoolie label. This led to a series of national and international engagements that firmly established Moore's lasting contribution to Texas music.

Growing up in Freedmen's Town in Dallas during the early part of the century, Alex Moore heard the ragtime and developing barrelhouse piano style played in the area's many dives and whorehouses that nurtured so many other early black blues artists. After his father died, Alex dropped out of school during sixth grade to help support the family by doing various odd jobs. While working as a delivery boy he became interested in learning the piano, and picked up what instruction he could at stops along the way. During the 1920s he developed his own idiosyncratic style, borrowing from the blues, ragtime, boogie, and stride techniques made famous through recordings. He picked up the name "Whistlin' Alex" for the self-encouraging sounds he made while playing.

In 1929 Moore traveled to a recording studio to do six songs for Columbia, and in subsequent decades continued to make a few recordings, which document his development. But Moore never was able to quit his day job, and continued to work until his retirement in 1965. In 1969 he traveled to Europe for a blues festival and made an album recorded in Stuttgart at a live concert, the popular Alex Moore in Europe. Many other festival appearances followed over the years, but Moore always returned home to Dallas, where he entertained at a local blues club. In 1987 he was the first African American artist to receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1988 he released his last recording, an engaging piece titled "Wiggle Tail." He died of a heart attack early in 1989.