RIP, Sam Moore
R&B pioneer also sang duet on Conway Twitty's final recording session
This won’t be a full-blown post, as I’m working on an obituary of rhythm & blues pioneer Sam Moore for Living Blues magazine.
But while Moore is best known to modern audiences as the inspiration for John Belushi and Dan Akroyd’s Blues Brothers skit, and older audiences remember him as half the Sam & Dave hit-making act in the 1960s, the first time I paid close attention to Moore’s artistry was when I received a review copy of “Rhythm Country & Blues,” a 1994 summit project that producer Don Was put together.
That album paired country and soul acts on a series of mostly R&B standards. Some of the pairings were genius: George Jones and B.B. King on “Patches,” Vince Gill and Gladys Knight killing “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing,” and Clint Black whipping our his harmonica on “Chain of Fools” with the Pointer Sisters.
It’s an amazing album, and worth tracking down if you don’t have it. But what really grabbed my attention was the duet between Moore and country legend Conway Twitty on Brook Benton’s classic “Rainy Night in Georgia.”
This duet between two of the greatest American popular singers of any style is not only a home run to listen to, but when I found a LaserDisc of the album with a documentary on one side, and a music video of each song on the other, and got to see the personal interplay between the two men, the respect the country singer and the soul singer had for one another, well, watch for yourself. My words fail:
Sadly, Twitty died unexpectedly in June 1993, 9 months before this album was finished and released. Thanks to Don Was, we have this treat in perpetuity.
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