William M. "Wild Bill" Moore (June 13, 1918 – August 1, 1983) was an American R&B and jazz tenor saxophone player. Moore earned a modest hit on the Hot R&B charts with "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll", which also was one of the earliest rock and roll records according to some sources.
Moore was born in Detroit Michigan and began playing the alto saxophone at an early age. However, prior to his musical career, he was an amateur boxer, winning Michigan's Golden Gloves light heavyweight championship in 1937, before briefly turning professional. By the early 1940s, Moore abandoned his boxing career in favor of music, and was inspired by musicians Chu Berry and Illinois Jacquet to switch to tenor saxophone.
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| Big Maybelle |
Settling into a role as a sessionist, Moore played behind Big Maybelle on her debut side in 1944 with Christine Chatman’s group, and also was one of many ad hoc groups that backed Big Joe Turner in his wilderness years, but he notched his most impressive credit during this period on the huge 1945 Helen Humes hit, “Be-Baba-Leba” with Bill Doggett’s outfit.
Between 1945 and 1947, Moore was performing and recording in Los Angeles with Slim Gaillard, Jack McVea, Dexter Gordon, and played on Helen Humes’ hit recording, "Be-Baba-Leba". Seems not to have adopted the nickname "Wild" until late '46 (leading to potential confusion with at least two other Bill Moores recording jazz in the mid-'40s).
In 1947 he moved back to Detroit and began recording with his own band, which included baritone player Paul Williams, later famous for "The Hucklebuck". The two horn players worked well in unison and alternated credit on their releases for the next few months, though both were equally prominent on the records. In December of that year, he recorded "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll" for the Savoy label which was a modest hit and is remembered today as one of many candidates for the first rock and roll record. It was one of the first records played by Alan Freed on his "Moondog" radio shows in 1951.
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| Paul Williams |
However, by the standards of its time it was quite a primitive recording, notable mainly for the juxtaposition of the words “rock” and “roll”, and the battling saxophones of Moore and Williams. Though not first among the rock sax stars, Moore’s records were the ones to firmly connect the music with the term itself, using “rock” in multiple titles over the next few years, including after he switched to Modern Records in 1949, all of which helped to ensure the name of the style was widely known. In 1949, he cut "Rock And Roll", reportedly featuring Scatman Crothers on vocals.
Unlike Williams who became a prominent bandleader on multi-artist rock tours in the 1950’s, Moore faded into the background again, cutting some good, but little heard sides for Sensation, Regal, King and Old Town, but like many former honking rock sax stars when the music began featuring more prominent guitar breaks as opposed to sax he drifted back into jazz before getting one final glorious reprieve when the longtime Detroit resident was asked by Marvin Gaye to play on his immortal What’s Goin’ On album, as Moore contributed the key part in “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”.
In their 1992 book, What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record?, Jim Dawson and Steve Propes dedicated a chapter to Moore and his influential "We're Gonna Rock", We're Gonna Roll." Joe Bihari, the former vice-chairman of Modern Records, does not consider the song to be the first rock and roll record. "No. I don't think so. It was titled Rock and Roll, but that title probably just came out of my head."
(Edited from Wikipedia, Spotaneous Lunacy Blog & The World Of Sax)