"Let Those Brown Eyes Smile"
Red Moses w/ Bluegrass Pioneers - c.1979

Jessie Clayton (Red) Moses Jr. was born in 1923 in Mayo, Florida. He was one of a dozen or so Thursday night regulars who always performed at Allen's Cafe unless sickness or occassionally being out of town kept them away.

Red was a soft spoken and a true gentleman, who was known as as the man of a thousand songs, because if he wasn't able to fill your request tonight -- next week he could. Very rarely did someone name one of those old songs, that Red didn't know or know of.

Red learned to play on an old guitar his mother traded a chicken for when he a boy, often sitting for hours on the front porch playing and singing. He learned songs from the radio and his picker friends.

In the late 1940s and 50s, Red performed as a regular with Zeke Hollins on the Saturday Afternoon Country Hour at WLAK radio in Lakeland as well as another radio show out of Haines City, both very prestigious gigs during that era.

In the early 1970s, Red was lead singer for the Bluegrass Pioneers out of Tampa. In 1973, they won the Florida State Bluegrass Championship and in 1979, they won the Mid-Florida Bluegrass Championship.

Red always wore a happy smile when he is on stage-- singing and playing his guitar and harmonica. He passed away in December, 1996, at age 73.

See also: Red Moses feels at home with his music by Carl Allen
from the book "Root Hog or Die Poor"