“Deacon” John Moore is an iconic New Orleans figure: a powerhouse guitarist and smooth vocalist whose band, the Ivories, has been in demand at proms, weddings, Carnival balls, and festivals for decades. He’s an old school bluesman at heart, but can effortlessly slide from New Orleans R&B to gospel to disco to contemporary pop. He hasn’t had the recording career or touring life that would put him on the mainstream map, but he is a legend nonetheless.

Moore, one of 13 children, grew up in a musical household, and was influenced as much by the blues music he heard over late night radio—Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf—as he was by the fertile New Orleans music scene around him, burgeoning with stars like Little Richard, Shirley and Lee, and Fats Domino.

In the late 1950s, he honed his guitar chops—and his reputation—playing in the house band at the legendary Dew Drop Inn, as a session man for Allen Toussaint at Cosimo Matassa’s J & M Studios, and backing then-rising stars like Aaron and Art Neville, Irma Thomas, Lee Dorsey, and Ernie K-Doe. He was given the nickname “Deacon” by a band member, and even though he didn’t like it at first, it stuck, and now the entire city is on first name terms with “Deke.”

He formed his own band in 1960, where both his showmanship and leadership flourished. Over the years, Deacon John and the Ivories became a staple at New Orleans’s many social events. The band is also known somewhat as a farm team; members have included James Booker, various Neville brothers, James Rivers, and Moore’s own family members, including guitarist son Charles and granddaughter Kathleen, who now sings with the WWII Museum’s Victory Belles.

Moore is a crowd favorite at the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival, has played at the White House and at gubernatorial inaugurations, and is an inductee in the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. He’s the subject of the documentary film, Going Back to New Orleans: The Deacon John Film and a 2003 concert CD, Deacon John’s Jump Blues. He’s not famous on the world stage; as he told National Public Radio, “I never had a hit record and I never been on tour, and I never played in all these foreign countries. Many of my contemporaries have. I'm just one of the guys who stayed around here and made a living playing music.”

In addition to his leadership on the bandstand, Moore is also a behind-the-stage leader as the longtime president of the local branch of the American Federation of Musicians, the first African American to hold that role. He has also made acting appearances in the 1987 film Angel Heart, a cameo in the 2013 The Last Exorcism Part II, and as a guest star on several episodes of HBO’s Treme miniseries.

Matt Sakakeeny is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Music at Tulane University. He is an anthropologist studying music and sound in relation to structures of inequality in the United States. Sakakeeny is the author of Roll with It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans and co-author of the edited collections Keywords in Sound and Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity. He has received grants from the Spencer Foundation and the National Humanities Center for his next book about school marching bands in New Orleans. Sakakeeny has lived in New Orleans since 1997 and is a board member of two nonprofit organizations, the Roots of Music afterschool program and the Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund. 

Nick Spitzer is a folklorist and a professor of anthropology and American studies at Tulane University. He specializes in American music and the cultures of the Gulf South, and received a PhD in anthropology from the University of Texas in 1986, with a dissertation on zydeco music and Afro-French Louisiana culture and identities. As Louisiana State Folklorist (1978–85), he created films, festivals, exhibits, and recordings of regional music, and he co-produced a 90-minute Folk Festival USA special on Louisiana music for NPR, helping to bring Cajun music and zydeco to national visibility. Spitzer directed the film Zydeco: Creole Music and Culture in Rural Louisiana (1986) and has produced or annotated two dozen documentary sound recordings. In 2002 he co-curated Raised to the Trade: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art. His weekly radio show, American Routes, reaches nearly a million listeners each week on more than 268 stations and via its website.