If hard work guaranteed success, Dallas Moore would have solid gold cabanas surrounding an Olympic-sized swimming facility behind his mansion, and his pool boy would have a pool boy. Moore routinely gigs around 300 dates annually, a number that includes multiple shows on a single day, solo or with his talented band.
“With the internet and satellite radio, you’re not under anybody’s control,” Moore says. “An independent musician can work as much as they want to. But you can’t count on no one else to do it for you. Nobody likes it as much as you do. No one cares that much. It’s all what you make of it.”
Even by Moore’s strenuous standards, 2017 was a watershed year, professionally and personally, for the Country singer/songwriter. He continued his grueling road pace; he and his band won Outlaw Group of the Year at the annual Ameripolitan Music Awards; he recorded his soon-to-be-released new album, Mr. Honky Tonk; and he and wife Jenna, who helps manage and book her husband, welcomed their first child, daughter Victory, last June.
“I actually did something I never do; I took a couple days off,” Moore says with a laugh. “When we had the baby, people asked, ‘Are you gonna slow down?’ We’ve been playing 300 dates a year for a while now and I’m like, ‘What do you mean slow down? I’ve got a family to support now. I’m looking for that eighth day in the week to book!’ Have guitar, will travel. You pick it, I’ll jug it.”
Of course, the universe often short-circuits joy with a bracing dose of bitter reality. Days after his daughter’s birth, Moore’s mother was diagnosed with late-stage cancer and began intense chemotherapy. Thankfully, she’s responded well to treatment, which Moore has driven her to and from, and she seems to be on the mend as Moore’s father continues to recuperate from a fall at home early last year.
Moore’s big career news is obviously his other new baby, Mr. Honky Tonk. The album’s title track is actually a song that Moore wrote 20 years ago but never came out quite the way he intended.
“We never got a good take of it,” he says. “It was always out of place for where we were at the time. When we found out we were recording with Dean Miller and we were gonna have pedal steel and piano and stuff I normally wouldn’t have access to, I knew we’d be able to do the song the way I always heard it in my head. We knocked it out in one take.”
Dean Miller is second-generation Country royalty; his father was Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Roger Miller and he’s a recording artist in his own right, which makes him an empathetic producer. He discovered Moore and contacted him by email with an offer to produce his next studio session. After a brief phone conversation, Moore sensed he was dealing with a kindred spirit; they began recording the week after Victory’s birth.
The original plan was to record a single, so Moore chose “Mr. Honky Tonk.” When he and longtime guitarist Chuck Morpurgo got to Nashville, Moore was startled by the crew that welcomed them to the Beaird Music Group studio. Miller had assembled a murderers’ row of accomplished session players: Michael Rhodes on bass; Steve Hinson on pedal steel; J.T. Corenflos on guitar; Eddie Bayers on drums; and Mickey Raphael from Willie Nelson’s band on harmonica.
“They’re all sitting there,” Moore recalls, “and I’m thinking, ‘Who are they here to play with? We’re booked on a good day.’ And they were there to play with us! Dean didn’t tell us, he just said, ‘I got your band put together.’ And away we went.”
The single was sent to Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel and immediately became one of its most requested tracks. When “Mr. Honky Tonk” blew up, the decision was made to include the single in a five-song EP, so Moore and Morpurgo returned to Nashville to record an additional four songs. That session’s success led Moore to scrap his planned October EP and schedule a third session to complete an eight-song mini album. Mr. Honky Tonk has since become one of 2018’s most anticipated releases.
“The players were thanking me for making a real Country record in Nashville in today’s climate, because it’s not being done very much,” Moore says. “It was pretty neat to have the guys who played on my favorite records say, ‘Man, this is a great Country song. Thanks for giving us something to play on.’ I’m so pleased with how this record turned out.”
With Moore’s frequent out-of-town excursions, word began circulating that he had moved to Texas and would live there part-time. The reality is that he spends so much time touring in the state that a friend offered Moore and his band his upstairs bedrooms to stay in during their typical weeklong run of Texas shows.
“Me and my wife are from here, we still have a place here and we always will,” Moore says. “We just expanded into splitting our time between Ohio and Texas. (My friend) said, ‘We’ll call this the Honky Tonk Hacienda and it’ll be your second home.’ ”
This year could be as frenetic as 2017 for Moore, especially after Mr. Honky Tonk’s release on March 2. For now, Moore is content in reaping the rewards of two decades of sweat (and beer and whiskey) equity.
“We’ve never gone back or even treaded water and stayed in the same place,” he says. “We always took little steps, and now it seems like things are moving fast.”
Moore is booked to play some larger festivals this summer, including June’s Tumbleweed fest in Kansas City, which also features performers like Marty Stuart, Shooter Jennings and Robert Earl Keen.
“We’ve got gigs at festivals, but we don’t treat it any different than a regular gig,” Moore says. “We’re gonna show up and play our asses off and hope everybody has a good time.
“When you play this many gigs, it never gets boring. I love it all. I was born for this shit.”
Dallas Moore plays the Knotty Pine (6947 Cheviot Road, White Oak) every Wednesday this month. Fore more info, visit dallasmoore.com.
This article appears in Feb 7-14, 2018.
