Tiny Moore

Who was Tiny Moore?

Billie "Tiny" Moore was a Western swing musician who played the electric mandolin and fiddle with Western swing legend Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1940s.

Born in the Gulf Coast town of Port Arthur, Texas, in 1920, Moore was the first well-known American musician in any genre whose primary instrument was the electric mandolin. While a member of the Texas Playboys from 1946 to 1950, he played Gibson electric mandolins: at first an EM-125, and sometime after 1948, an EM-150. Although these are 8-string mandolins, Tiny used only 4 single strings instead of pairs. This gave his mandolin an electric guitarlike sound. Later, in 1952, he commissioned one of the first American-built 5-string electric mandolins from Paul Bigsby. At the time Moore was playing in a band led by Bob Wills' brother, Billy Jack. The Bigsby 5-string mandolin had single courses of strings and added a low C string to the standard G, D, A and E. This tuning actually gives the instrument a wider range of notes than a guitar.

Western swing is a hybrid of country, blues, and jazz; Tiny Moore's style of playing draws upon all of these sources. Moore and his Bigsby mandolin were strongly identified with each other for the remainder of his career. The instrument is arguably the most famous electric mandolin in the history of American popular music.