I’ll Sail My Ship Alone · Moon’s Tune

Moon Mullican had been making records for a decade before any came out under his own name. Born Aubrey Wilson Mullican near Corrigan, in Polk County, Texas, in 1909, he sang and played piano with the Blue Ridge Playboys at a San Antonio session in November 1936. From 1938 he recorded with Cliff Bruner’s bands for Decca, in hotel sessions in San Antonio and Houston. His vocal on Bruner’s “Truck Driver’s Blues” was cut at the Rice Hotel in Houston in August 1939.

His long run on Syd Nathan’s King label began in October 1946 at Cliff Herring’s studio in Fort Worth, with his band the Showboys: Mutt Collins on lead guitar, Acie Peveto on steel, and Cotton Thompson and Ralph Lamb on fiddles. That session produced “New Pretty Blonde (New Jole Blon),” his take on Harry Choates’s “New Jole Blon,” issued on King 578 that November. It sold more than a million copies. Jethro Burns and Homer Haynes played guitar on his early-1947 dates, and a June 1947 session in Fort Worth produced “Sweeter Than the Flowers.” “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone” was recorded on 15 March 1949 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, with Cameron Hill and Jimmy Wyble on guitars, Noel Boggs on steel, and Joe Holley and Billy Wright on fiddles. King issued it with “Moon’s Tune” on 24 December 1949, and it too became a million-seller. Known as the “King of the Hillbilly Piano Players,” he was a member of the Grand Ole Opry from 1949 to 1955.

From April 1950 he usually recorded at King’s own studio on Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati, at first with Jerry Byrd on steel and Tommy Jackson on fiddle. His covers of “Goodnight Irene” and “Mona Lisa” sold well, as did “Cherokee Boogie,” which he wrote with W. C. Redbird. In July 1952 he was back at Radio Recorders, with Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West, for “Jambalaya” and “Pipeliner Blues.” Boyd Bennett played drums on his Cincinnati sessions from 1953, and Rufus Gore played saxophone on “Rocket to the Moon.” His last King session, in January 1956, was billed as Moon with Boyd Bennett and His Rockets.

Coral, a Decca subsidiary, recorded him in Nashville in 1958 and 1959 at Bradley Film and Recording Studio. Owen Bradley produced, with Hank Garland, Grady Martin, Harold Bradley, Bob Moore, Farris Coursey and the Anita Kerr Singers. The singles, among them “Jenny Lee” and “Moon’s Rock,” sold poorly, while King reissued his old sides with new backing tracks. He moved to Starday in 1960, recording at its Dickerson Road studio with Pete Drake on steel and Tommy Hill producing, and “Ragged but Right” (1961) was his last hit. From 1962 to 1964 he cut singles for the Hall-Way label at the Hall/Clement studio in Beaumont, with Jack Clement producing, including “Fools Like Me” and “Colinda,” and he made a final set of recordings for Spar in 1966. His two-finger piano style influenced Jerry Lee Lewis. He died of a heart attack at his home in Beaumont on 1 January 1967.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.