The Funeral Singer

The ragged Wurlitzer speaker mounted high above the blackboard in the seventh grade classroom at New Orleans's Corpus Christi Elementary School crackled to life, “John Moore please report to the choir loft.” Static. “John Moore please report to the choir loft.”

John Moore closed his catechism, marched down the hallway and across the school yard to the church entrance. As he passed the depiction of Jesus’s suffering on the Stations of the Cross, he felt a combination of religious, social, and performance pressure. He thought: “They’re gonna make me sing ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Ave Maria’ in Latin.”

Those were his go-to funeral songs. Now Moore is eighty-two, and even after the enormous social, cultural, and musical changes endured by his hometown of New Orleans and the country writ large, they still are. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Moore, affectionately known as “Deacon John,” has lived a rather typical atypical life as, in his words, “a Creole of color, socialized as a Negro.”

Moore grew up on one side of a shotgun duplex with his parents and twelve siblings during the 1940s and ‘50s. His mother, Augustine Boudreaux, was a classically-trained pianist who wanted her musically-inclined children to be trained in the classical discipline.

Moore's family, much like other large musical families in New Orleans at the time—like the Bouttés, the Batistes, the Marsalises, the Nevilles, the Lasties, the Jordans, and others—shared and exchanged knowledge and expertise on piano, brass, reeds, vocals, percussion, just about anything that made music. From fathers and sons to mothers and daughters, to aunts and uncles and cousins extended, expertise, facility and the admonition to practice wound through these large family relations, a constant energy flowing through the culture.

Moore’s eldest sister played viola and his brothers were classical guitarists. As for Moore himself—his mother recognized his vocal talents early on. He started taking voice lessons at a young age and became a soprano in the Corpus Christi Catholic Church choir.

The church, home of the large Creole Catholic community in New Orleans, was a comfortable gathering place for people of color in New Orleans’s Seventh Ward.

Besides the classical music loved by his mother and the liturgical music he performed for his community, Moore was an early fan of R&B and listened to the “race music” stations like WLAC in Nashville and XERF in Del Rio, Texas on his crystal radio with his head under the covers “so my Mama couldn’t hear me”. By middle school, in addition to singing in the choir, Moore was learning to play the guitar as the frontman for his R&B band, the Rockettes.

New Orleans is well known as the so-called “Cradle of Jazz,” but the city’s wildly diverse conglomeration of cultures also contributed the first spark of this other genre of American popular music—the seminal expressions of what would later evolve into Rock and Roll. Here is where icons like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Roy Brown, Lloyd Price, and others made their first records. There were the drummers—Earl Palmer, Charles “Hungry” Williams, Joseph “Smokey” Johnson—and the horn players: Herb Hardesty, Lee Allen, and  Alvin Owen "Red" Tyler. And of course there were the piano players: Domino, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Mac Rebennack—better known as "Dr. John", Huey "Piano" Smith, and Henry Roeland Byrd—better known as Professor Longhair. These innovative players established the piano as the dominant instrument in the New Orleans version of primordial rock music. The rolling left-hand bottom at first, and the staccato right-hand counterpoint, provided the distinguishing sound on those records—in contrast to the electric guitar, which would develop into its loud and sometime jarring prominence later in the timeline.

Domino, with his lifelong producing partner Dave Bartholomew, adapted and used the “junker blues” left-handed piano pattern of Champion Jack Dupree in his first hit, “The Fat Man.” That record, and many of the other recordings of the era, was produced by Cosimo Matassa—first at his J&M Studio on Rampart Street (now with an historic place designation) and later at “Cosmo’s” on Governor Nicholls Street, a place as holy as the Vatican in New Orleans music lore.

Moore found his way to Matassa’s studio by way of Allen Toussaint, who discovered him playing with his band The Ivories at the legendary Dew Drop Inn. Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Moore would work as a session player at the French Quarter studio, playing guitar on records of R&B stars the likes of Irma Thomas, the Neville Brothers, Lee Dorsey, and Ernie K-Do.

In a great and possibly apocryphal song origin story, Moore was at Toussaint’s house when Chris Kenner dropped in and sang an a cappella version of “Land of 1000 Dances,” which he claimed to have written on a Leidenheimer French bread wrapper on the way over. Toussaint recorded it on a reel-to-reel tape machine above his upright piano. He polished it that night and brought Kenner to cut it at Cosimo’s the next day.

Over the course of his long career, Moore has become a beloved figure on the Crescent City Music scene, performing at weddings, debutante balls, Carnival, and for over fifty years at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He’s played at venues up and down the Chitlin’ Circuit, and even at the White House. In 2000, he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

And still to this day, when someone dies, especially members of the tightly-knit Creole musical community of the Crescent City, Moore and his version of “Ave Maria” have become a hallmark of New Orleans memorial service traditions at churches, banquet halls, theaters, cemeteries, and funeral home chapels. He was a major part of the 2015 Orpheum Theater funeral of music ambassador Allen Toussaint, who played such a large part in advancing Moore’s career, and the 2018 Jazz Fest memorial for Fats Domino. In the summer of 2019, he performed one of The Queen of Creole Cuisine’s favorite songs to bid her adieu.   

For Moore and his community, after all, Dooky Chase’s was a social touchstone. Dooky, a musician himself, managed his famous restaurant and occasionally tended bar, and his wife Leah—who became a New Orleans icon herself—helmed the kitchen. Moore recalls that “Dooky would cash musician’s checks after a gig because he knew they would use the cash to buy something to bring home to their wives or girlfriends for being out so late. Most of the time that was a fried shrimp, fried oyster, or roast beef po-boy, and they called it ‘the peacemaker’.”   

Famously, Dooky Chase’s was an important site of meetings and planning during the Civil Rights era, hosting the likes of Martin Luther King while he was organizing peaceful protests to end segregation.

Moore smiles when recalling Leah Chase’s funeral, “She wanted me to sing her favorite song, ‘Peace In The Valley’ and the version she liked was sung by Elvis Presley.”  Deacon honored her request, but with a version closer to Sam Cooke’s.

Moore also sang at the 2003 funeral service of blues titan Earl King at the stately Gallier Hall on St. Charles Ave. King was one of the great songwriters of the era and his songs were born of observation. Sometimes King would hang out at Dorothy’s Steakhouse, next door to the Dew Drop Inn, and write about the sophisticates as well as the players who frequented both establishments.

These characters would be the inspiration for Wilson Turbinton’s “Teasin’ You.” Turbinton, who performed as Willie Tee, collaborated with Wardell Quezergue, the A-list arranger for New Orleans’s most popular sessions, called the "Creole Beethoven". Quezergue wrote his horn charts using a tuning fork. He is best known for arranging New Orleans classics like “Teasin’ You” and “Big Chief.” But, as an avid member of the Creole Catholic community, he was most proud of his arrangements for a Catholic High Mass performed at St. Louis Cathedral. The program for Quezergue’s funeral had an entry: Vocal performed by Deacon John Moore.

In addition, Moore was a performer at the 2008 funeral of Chuck Carbo. Carbo had a magnificent baritone and was known for the 1950s hit, “Bells in My Heart.” He was born in an area of town called Zion City near Washington and Broad where the gospel group, the Zion Harmonizers, originated and got their name. Moore sang “Any Day Now,” a traditional Negro spiritual, at the funerals of Carbo and the original members of the Zion Harmonizers, including its founder, Sherman Washington, Jr. who died in 2011.

There was no singing at the 2019 memorial service for Art Neville, patriarch of the famous Neville family. But Moore was one of several speakers. Art Neville’s late 1950s recording of “Cha Dooky-Doo” had the classic blues inflected rhythm pattern unique to New Orleans. Moore said that the guitar solo was so impactful on his own guitar playing that he asked Art Neville who played it. Neville told him that Walter “Papoose” Nelson played it after he poked a hole in the amp speaker with a butter knife to create a one of the earliest “fuzztone” distortions.                                                                                                                                    

At first blush, the demands of a funeral singer might seem off-putting or depressing or even a recognition of the singer’s own mortality. But for Deacon John Moore, singing at funerals has always been a way to comfort people in time of sorrow while celebrating his own longevity, talent, and passion for music.

In addition to the New Orleans royalty, Moore has sung at the services of many other personal friends, relatives, fans, and people he didn’t even know—but whose families knew him. Even now, at age eighty-two, he is still very much in demand and his participation is a moving gift with which to gracefully and soulfully depart this dimension. 

Here are some of the individuals "Deacon" Moore has sent off by singing at their funerals:

Allen Toussaint  

Malcolm “Dr. John” Rebennack Jr. 

Wardell Quezergue 

Cosimo “Cos” Matassa 

Dave Bartholomew 

Bernard “Bunchy” Johnson 

The Zion Harmonizers:  Sherman Washington, Margie Ramsey, and Howard Bowie Alfred “Uganda” Roberts 

Hayward "Chuck" Carbo  

Earl Silas “Earl King” Johnson 

Joseph “Smokey” Johnson 

Fird “Snooks” Eaglin 

Layton “Johnny” Adams 

Edwin “Eddie Bo” Bocage 

James “Sugar Boy” Crawford 

Alvin “Red” Tyler 

Wilson “Willie Tee” Turbinton 

Earl “African Cowboy” Turbinton 

Joseph “Danny” White 

Thomas “Tommy” Ridgley 

Samuel “Sammy” Ridgley 

Oliver “La La” Morgan 

Joseph “Mr. G” August 

Alvin “Shine” Robinson 

Albert “June” Gardner 

James Booker 

Bobby Mitchell 

King Floyd III 

Robert “Barefootin’” Parker

George Davis Jr.

Benny Spellman 

Judy Spellman 

Edgar “Dooky” Chase 

Leah Chase 

David Lastie 

Layton Martens 

Betty Ann Lastie 

Anthony Brown  

Theodore “Big Chief” Bo Dollis

Roger Poche' 

Raphael Neal

Don “Moose” Jamison 

“John Fred” Gourrier

Ben Singleton 

Harold Batiste

Oscar “Bobby Marchand” Gibson 

Alvin Batiste

Gerald Adams 

Juanita Brooks

Placide Adams 

“Lady BJ” Crosby 

Frederick “Fred” Kemp 

Barbara Ann “Barbara George” Smith 

Frederick “Shep” Sheppard 

Maria "Marva Wright" Williams 

Landras "Grayhawk" Perkins  

Walter Payton, Jr. 

Matthew “Matt” Perkins 

Isaiah “Buddy” Williams

Irving Charles 

Wendell Eugene Humphrey

Davis Roy Evans

Joelle Neville  

Douglas Evans

Clarence Brown  

Samuel Bijou

Curtis Mitchell 

Raymond “Ray Jay” Jones

Joseph “Cousin Joe” Pleasant 

John “John L.” Jones

Joe Simon  

“Pinkie” Jones

Richard Payne 

Wayne Bennett

Michael “Mike” Caruba 

Bobby Lacour R

obert "Catman" Caffrey  

James Black

John “Johnny” Vindigni 

Warren “Porgy” Jones

John “Johnny Spade” Saltaformaggio 

John Dawson

Milton Batiste 

Antoinette K-Doe

Henry “Frog” Joseph 

“Skip” Godwin 

Nauman Scott, 

Edward Frank 

Nolan Coleman 

Jerry Jumonville

Joseph “Joe” Fox 

Marcel Richardson 

John Brunious 

Theryl “House Man” DeClouet 

Raymond Lewis 

Herman Earnest

Stuart “Blue Stu” Bochner  

Larry Hamilton

Emory “Big Emory” Thompson 

Oliver Cornin

Ralph Johnson 

Julius Farmer

Arthur Vigne  

Clyde Kerr Jr. 

Johnny “Fat Johnny” Thomasina 

Samuel Berfect

Victor Sirker  

Darryl Walker 

Glen Gaines 

Samuel “Sam” Alcorn

Ulis Gaines 

Alvin Alcorn

Marshall Sehorn 

Oliver Alcorn Sr. 

Larry McKinley 

Tony “Oulaboula” Bazely

Chappy Hardy 

Gerald Tillman

Jimmy Glickman  

George “Jay” Zainey

Evelyn “Cookie” Gabriel  

Eugene Synegal 

Wilbur “Junkyard Dog” Arnold 

Walter “Wolfman” Washington 

Richard “Tricky Dickie” Dixon  

George Green  

James "Babatunji Ahmed" Tucker  

Winston Purvis  

John Randle  

Michael P. Smith  

Paul Beaulieu  

“Odetta” Holmes  

Michael Stark  

Thornton “Thorny” Penfield 

“Cashus” Clay  

Brian E. Murray  

John “Scarface John” Williams  

Martha Carter  

George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry  

Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana 

Maurice “Marty Most” Martinez  

In 2003, author Cyril Vetter and his daughter, Baton Rouge attorney Gabrielle Vetter, wrote and produced Deacon John's Jump Blues, a critically acclaimed and award-winning music CD, concert video and documentary film. A limited edition vinyl LP is currently in production and will be released this year.