Eugene "Buddy" Moss (January 16, 1914 – October 19, 1984) was, in the estimation of many blues scholars, one of two the most influential East Coast blues guitarists to record in the period between Blind Blake's final sessions in 1932 and Blind Boy Fuller's debut in 1935 (the other being Josh White). A younger contemporary of Blind Willie McTell, Curley Weaver and Barbecue Bob, Moss was part of a coterie of Atlanta bluesmen, and among the few of his era who had been involved in the blues revival of the 1960s and 1970s. A guitarist of uncommon skill and dexterity with a strong voice, he began as a musical disciple of Blind Blake, and may well have served as an influence on the later Piedmont-style guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Although his career was halted in 1935 by a six-year jail term, and then by the Second World War, Moss lived long enough to be rediscovered in the 1960s, when he revealed his talent had persevered throughout the years. He was reputed to have been cankerous and mistrusting of others, the extent to which this is a case is subjective.
In later years, Moss credited friend and band-mate Barbecue Bob with being a major influence on his playing, which would be understandable given the time they spent together. Scholars also attribute Arthur "Blind" Blake as a major force in his development, with mannerisms and inflections that both share. It is also suggested by Alan Balfour and others that Moss may have been an influence on Blind Boy Fuller, as they never met and Moss' recording career ended before Fuller's began — Moss's first recordings display some inflections and nuances that Fuller had not put down on record until some years later.
Moss was one of 12 children born to a sharecropper in the Warren County town of Jewell, Georgia, midway between Atlanta and Augusta. There is some disagreement about his date of birth, some sources indicating 1906 and many others of more recent vintage claiming 1914. He began teaching himself the harmonica at a very early age, and he played at local parties around Augusta, where the family moved when he was four and remained for the next 10 years. By 1928, he was busking around the streets of Atlanta. "Nobody was my influence," he told Robert Springer of his harmonica playing, in a 1975 interview. "I just kept hearing people, so I listen and I listen, and listen, and it finally come to me."
By the time he arrived in Atlanta, he was good enough to be noticed by Curley Weaver and Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks, who began working with the younger Moss. It was Weaver and Bob that got him onto his first recording date, at the age of 16, as a member of their group the Georgia Cotton Pickers, on December 7, 1930 at the Campbell Hotel in Atlanta, doing four songs for Columbia: "I'm On My Way Down Home," "Diddle-Da-Diddle," "She Looks So Good," and "She's Comin' Back Some Cold Rainy Day." The group that day consisted of Barbecue Bob and Curley Weaver on guitars and Moss on harmonica. Moss would not record anything more for the next three years.
By 1933, Moss had taught himself the guitar, at which he became so proficient that he was a genuine peer and rival to Weaver. He frequently played with Barbecue Bob until his death of pneumonia on October 21, 1931, he found a new partner and associate in Atlanta blues legend Blind Willie McTell, performing together at local parties in the Atlanta area.
In January 1933, however, he made his debut as a recording artist in his own right for the American Record Company in New York City, accompanied by Fred McMullen and Curley Weaver, easily cutting three songs cut that first day, "Bye Bye Mama," "Daddy Don't Care," and "Red River Blues." Another 8 songs followed over the next three days, and all 11 were released, far more than saw the light of day from McMullen or Weaver at those same sessions.
The debut sessions also featured Moss returning to the mouth harp, as a member of the Georgia Browns - Moss, Weaver, McMullen and singer Ruth Willis - for six songs done at the same sessions. But it was on the guitar that Moss would make his name over the next five years.
Moss's records were released simultaneously on various budget labels associated with ARC, and were so successful that in mid-September 1933, he was back in New York City along with Weaver and Blind Willie McTell. Moss cut another dozen songs for the company, this time accompanied by Curley Weaver, while he accompanied Weaver and McTell on their numbers.
These songs sold well enough, that he was back in New York City in the summer of 1934, this time as a solo guitarist/singer, to do more than a dozen tracks. At this point, Moss's records were outselling those of his colleagues Weaver and McTell, and were widely heard through the Southern and Border states. His "Oh Lordy Mama" from these sessions became well known as "Hey Lawdy Mama", a song interpreted by a variety of artists. This body of recordings also best represents the bridge that Moss provided between Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller - his solo version of "Some Lonesome Day," and also "Dough Rollin' Papa," from 1934 advanced ideas in playing and singing that Blind Boy Fuller picked up and adapted to his own style, while one could listen to "Insane Blues" and pick up the lingering influence of Blind Blake.
By August 1935, Moss saw his per-song fee doubled from $5 to $10 (in a period when many men were surviving on less than that per week), and when he wasn't recording, he was constantly playing around Atlanta alongside McTell and Weaver. When Moss returned to the studio in the summer of 1935, it was with a new partner, Joshua Daniel White, "The Singing Christian". The two recorded a group of 15 songs in August 1935, and it seemed like Moss was destined to outshine his one-time mentors Weaver and McTell, when personal and legal disaster struck.
In an incident that has never been fully recounted or explained, Moss was arrested, tried, and convicted for the shooting murder of his wife and sentenced to a long prison term. (The above photograph was taken of Moss at the prison where he was incarcerated.) With the death of Blind Boy Fuller in 1941, his manager, J.B. Long, made efforts to secure Moss's release as a Fuller replacement, all to no avail until 1941, when a combination of Moss' own good behavior as a prisoner, the bribery of two parole boards, coupled with the entreaties of two outside sponsors (Long and Columbia Records) willing to assure his compliance with parole helped get him out of jail. J.B. Long finally effected his release to his custody with the understanding that Moss stay out of the State of Georgia for a decade. It was while working at Elon College for Long under the parole agreement that he met a group of other blues musicians under Long's management that included Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
In October 1941, Moss, Terry and McGhee, a.o. went to New York City to cut a group of sides for Okeh Records/Columbia, including 13 numbers by Moss featuring his two new colleagues. Only three of the songs were ever released, and then events conspired to cut short Moss's recording comeback. The entry of the United States into World War II in December of the same year forced the government to place a wartime priority on the shellac used in the making of 78-rpm Gramophone records - there was barely enough allocated to the recording industry to keep functioning, and record companies were forced to curtail recordings by all but the most commercially viable artists; a ban on recording work by the Musicians' Union declared soon after further restricted any chance for Moss to record; and the interest in acoustic country blues, even of the caliber that he played, seemed to be waning, further cutting back on record company interest.
Moss continued performing in the area around Richmond, Virginia and Durham, North Carolina during the mid-'40s, and with Curley Weaver in Atlanta during the early 1950s, but music was no longer his profession or his living. His decade ban from Georgia is probably why he missed out on recording for Regal Records in Atlanta in 1949; the likes of Curley Weaver, Blind Willie McTell, and Frank Edwards were recorded then. He went to work on a tobacco farm, drove trucks, and worked as an elevator operator, among other jobs, over the next 20-odd years.
Although he still occasionally played in the area around Atlanta, Moss was largely forgotten. Despite the fact that reference sources even then referred to him as one of the most influential bluesmen of the 1930s, he was overlooked by the blues revival. In a sense, he was cheated by the fact that his recording career had been so short - 1933 to 1935 - and had never recovered from the interruption in his work caused by his stretch in prison. His difficult character made it difficult for many, Black and White, to deal with him.
Fate stepped in, in the form of some coincidences. In 1964, he chanced to hear that his old partner Josh White was giving a concert at Emory University in Atlanta. Moss visited White backstage at the concert, and the fans hanging around established legend White suddenly discovered a blues legend in their midst. Moss was persuaded to resume performing in a series of concerts before college audiences, most notably under the auspices of the Atlanta Folk Music Society and the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. He also had new recording sessions for the Columbia label in Nashville, but none of the material was issued during his lifetime.
A June 10, 1966 concert in Washington, D.C. was recorded and portions of it were later released on the Biograph label. Moss played the Newport Folk Festival in 1969, and appeared at such unusual venues as New York's Electric Circus during that same year. During the 1970s, he played the John Henry Memorial Concert in West Virginia for two consecutive years, and the Atlanta Blues Festival and the Atlanta Grass Roots Music Festival in 1976, and later at The National Folk Festival held at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Vienna, VA.
Moss died in Atlanta on October 19, 1984, once again largely forgotten by the public. In the years since, his music was once again being heard courtesy of the Biograph label's reissue of the 1966 performance and the Austrian Document label, which has released virtually every side that he released between 1930 and 1941. While there were some who tried to get him to record, his difficult personality made that impossible – once again, he was his own worst enemy – in spite of his immense talent and importance. As a result, his reputation has once again grown, although he is still not nearly as well known among blues enthusiasts as Blind Willie McTell or Blind Boy Fuller.
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