Merrill E. Moore was born in Algona, on the east shore of the Des Moines River, in northern Iowa, on September 26, 1923. He began playing piano at about the age of seven, picking out the melodies of the hymns he heard at the Methodist church his parents dragged him to on Sundays.

Then came Mrs. Gunn, a piano teacher, a fancy lady from the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. And what of her breasts? Did they linger, warm and rife, against the nape of young Merrill’s neck, fill his tender being with the intoxicating liquor of their perfume, as she bent over his shoulder to guide his hands across the keys? Mr. Moore makes no mention of this. Yet, one wonders at the sins which might—might, I say—cause a woman to flee in shame from the Oberlin Conservatory, across the endless desolate miles of Indiana and Illinois, to seek unholy sanctuary in Algona, Iowa. But let us speak no more of this woman, who in fact may have done no wrong. She is departed now. Let her Maker alone be judge.

While in high school, Merrill discovered boogie-woogie through the records of Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Freddie Slack, who was then playing piano in Will Bradley’s Orchestra. “Those were the cats that really laid it down for me,” he says.

After high school, Merrill enlisted in the Navy to fight the Big Red One. He won. In 1945, he wed, moved to Tucson, and took a job playing at the Santa Rita Hotel. Three years later, he moved to San Diego. Playing a mixture of boogie-woogie and Western swing, Merrill found steady work in various local bands. But both types of music were dying fast. Soon they would be completely dead, even in San Diego.

. In 1950, Merrill Moore formed a band of his own. It looked like a country band: piano, guitar, bass, steel, and fiddle. It didn’t sound like one, however. And while Merrill continued to pump boogie-woogie bass lines with his left hand, his right hand was up to something altogether different. He didn’t really have a name for the new type of music he was playing, but he had a name for his band: The Saddle Rockin’ Rhythm Boys.

Early in 1952, Ken Nelson signed Merrill Moore and his Saddle Rockin’ Rhythm Boys to Capitol. On May 12, 1952, in Los Angeles, Merrill cut his first record.

Capitol didn’t release anything on him until the latter part of 1953, when his recording of “Corrine, Corrina” was issued. Although he never had a hit, Merrill continued to make records for Capitol, and Capitol continued to release them, until 1958.

Merrill wrote some hot ones. His “Fly Right Boogie” (1954) recounted, at a dangerously fast speed, his doctor’s warnings about the wages of living on a sustained second wind. Buttermilk Baby’ (1957) was about the pleasures of fat broads. Morfe often, Merrill looked elsewhere for his material. He reworked country songs such as “Bartender’s Blues,” “Barrel House Bessie,” and “Snatchin’ And Grabbin’.” From Western swing he took Bob Wills’ “She’s Gone” and Hank Thompson’s “Doggie House Boogie.” He played with boogie-woogie classics such as the 1940 “Down The Road A Piece” (the same song the Rolling Stones cut in 1965) and the 1946 “House Of Blue Lights.” Sometimes he reached even further back, to Jelly Roll Morton’s “King Porter Stomp,” to “Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue,” or even to Felix Arndt’s 1915 “Nola.”

His best work, such as “House Of Blue Lights” (1953), “Down The Road A Piece” (1955), and “Rock-Rockola” (1955; a tribute to the Rockola jukebox), represents some of the finest, most raucous rockabilly to be heard on record; a wedding of hillbilly boogie and R&B that would not be bettered until the coming of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Although Merrill, like everyone else, did not hear the word “rockabilly” until 1954 or so, there is pride in his broad Midwestern voice when he recalls that, “We were doing that—rockabilly—before I ever heard of Bill Haley. I never knew those guys until later. But we were doin’ that in 1948, yessir. ‘House of Blue Lights,’ ‘Down The Road A Piece,’ ‘Red Light.’ And I tell ya what, we’d take a bunch a Hank Williams tunes and do the boogie-woogie to ’em. Yessir.”

“House Of Blue Lights,” “Down The Road A Piece,” and “Red Light” were Merrill’s three best-selling records. But in all his years with Capitol, he never had a national hit and he never made the charts. Capitol simply didn’t know how to sell him, or to whom.

“I always thought that they were kind of in the wrong category. I never was country. I was more boogie-woogie and rockabilly, that kind of stuff. So I think they categorized it a little bit wrong there.”

After Capitol dropped him, Merrill Moore didn’t record again until 1969, when he cut an album for release in Great Britain by BMC Records. (Like most obscure rockabilly heroes, Merrill is better known abroad than in his native land. In 1967, Ember Records in London issued an anthology of Capitol sides, Bellyful Of Blue Thunder. A second collection, called Rough-House 88, followed in 1969.)

Merrill is still performing regularly in San Diego, and is quick to say that, “We.play that stuff better today than we did back then. Yessir.”

As the philosophers tell us, it’s a long way from Algona to San Diego. But now that Merrill Moore’s made it, he’s not lookirig back. Nosir.