Arnold "Gatemouth" Moore (November 8, 1913, Topeka, Kansas

Topeka, Kansas

Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...

 - May 19, 2004, Yazoo City, Mississippi

Yazoo City, Mississippi

Yazoo City is a city in Yazoo County, Mississippi, United States. It was named after the Yazoo River, which, in turn was named by the French explorer Robert La Salle. It is the county seat of Yazoo County and the principal city of the Yazoo City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the...

) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

 singer, songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and pastor

Pastor

The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....

. A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School

Booker T. Washington High School (Memphis, Tennessee)

Booker T. Washington High School is a public secondary school located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Part of the Memphis City Schools, it serves grades 9-12. The school gained national attention when U.S...

 in Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

, he claimed to have earned his nickname

Nickname

A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

 as a result of his loud speaking and singing voice.

During his career as a recording artist, Moore worked with various jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musicians, including Bennie Moten

Bennie Moten

Bennie Moten was a noted American jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri.He led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the itinerant, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of...

, Tommy Douglas

Tommy Douglas

Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician...

 and Walter Barnes

Walter Barnes

Walter Barnes was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader....

, and had songs recorded by B.B. King and Rufus Thomas

Rufus Thomas

Rufus Thomas, Jr. was an American rhythm and blues, funk and soul singer and comedian fromMemphis, Tennessee, who recorded on Sun Records in the...

.

In 1949, Moore was ordained as a minister First Church of Deliverance

First Church of Deliverance

First Church of Deliverance is a landmark church located at 4315 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The church was built in 1939 by Walter T. Bailey, and two towers were added to it in 1946 by Kocher, Buss & DeKlerk. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 5, 1994....

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and went on to preach and perform as a gospel singer and DJ

Disc jockey

A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 at several radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s in Memphis, Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

 and Chicago.

Moore holds distinctions as a survivor of the 1940 Natchez Rhythm Club Fire and as the first blues singer to perform at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

. A brass note on Beale Street Walk of Fame

Beale Street

Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of the blues. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are...

 was dedicated to Moore in 1996. He was also featured in Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

's 2003 documentary The Blues

The Blues (film)

The Blues is a 2003 documentary film series produced by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to the history of blues music. In each of the seven episodes, a different director explores a stage in the development of the blues...

.