Gatemouth Moore launched his career as a blues shouter before transitioning into gospel preaching, beginning in his teenage years in Kansas City with performances alongside the ensembles led by Bennie Moten and Walter Barnes. His smooth yet commanding vocal style echoed that of Charles Brown, and throughout the 1940s he composed and cut numerous tracks, the standout being “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” a number later interpreted by B.B. King as well as the aforementioned Charles Brown. Additional artists turned to Moore’s catalog, among them Rufus Thomas, who recorded “Somebody’s Got to Go,” and Jimmy Witherspoon, who took up “Christmas Blues.” By 1949 Moore had abandoned secular performance for a full commitment to gospel, continuing to sing and make records almost entirely within that genre while dedicating subsequent decades to church work and to hosting radio broadcasts that championed gospel music. Director Richard Pearce featured him in the 2003 film Road to Memphis, where Moore delivered a contemporary original titled “Beale Street Ain’t Beale Street No More.” The vocalist, nicknamed Gatemouth for the sheer size of his voice, died of natural causes the next year at age ninety.
