Local musician Bill Moore stopped by Live & Local last week, following the release of his second album, “Bill Moore and His Secret Admirers.”
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Bill Moore is still an undergrad at UNC, but he’s already established himself as a major figure in the Triangle’s music scene, with a unique sound that draws on over a century of American music history. His 2024 debut album recalled the North Carolina Piedmont blues of the 1920s and 30s – and now with “Secret Admirers,” he’s incorporating a wider variety of influences, including the early rock-and-rollers of the 1950s and 60s whose own music came directly out of those older blues traditions.
“There are a lot of different things going on,” he says of the new album. “When I first started researching older North Carolina music, most of what I was reading about was from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, mostly stuff on acoustic guitar… (but) after World War II, it didn’t just disappear. People who grew up hearing this music would play older songs in more updated settings…there was a lot more electric guitar, and a lot more coexistence and synthesis with later styles.”
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And it’s that synthesis that emerges in “Secret Admirers,” whose 15 tracks (almost all originals) range in style from bluegrass to country to doo-wop to rockabilly – all rooted firmly in those rich and varied traditions of mid-twentieth-century North Carolina music, not to mention the great artists who pulled from those same traditions later. (One of the lead singles, “She Make Me Tremble,” has a raw sound that’s reminiscent of vintage Dex Romweber – fittingly, Moore says, because he wrote it after spending two months listening to the Flat Duo Jets’ album “Go Go Harlem Baby” on a daily basis.)
“I like to think that it’s sort of a sound that has existed, but is very hard to find anywhere else,” Moore says of the album. “(And) I like to think that it’s fun to listen to. I think it’s just a lot of fun tunes.”
Listen to the album and purchase it on Bandcamp.
And as for the “Secret Admirers”?
“I made the band when I was reading a lot about early bluegrass, and I really liked the idea of ‘the Bluegrass Boys,’ (which) was a band that could be anyone,” Moore says. “So I was like, ‘I’m gonna make my own Bluegrass Boys.’”
For this particular album, Moore’s “secret admirers” are Sophie Lowry, Stuart MacMillan, Noemi Walton and Nick Tutweiler – all veterans of UNC’s Carolina Bluegrass Band, which has become an increasingly influential wellspring for new local musicians (including Moore himself) since its debut in 2016.
“It was a group effort among friends, (so) it’s got a little livelier sound,” Moore says. “And everything was done in one or two takes, no edits, no overdubs, no cuts.”
In fact, he says, the whole album was recorded in a single six-hour live marathon session, with engineer Jerry Brown at the Rubber Room.
“We were all full-time students, so it was very chaotic to find a (free) afternoon,” he says with a laugh. “Jerry told me a story he’d heard about Jimmy Martin, a bluegrass artist who came in and recorded an album completely live (in) 45 minutes, and then refused to pay the hourly rate because he hadn’t spent an hour! We weren’t quite that that tight, but we were pretty close: most people barely do one song in six hours, so fifteen songs was kind of wild.”
Now that the album’s out, Moore is celebrating with a series of shows. Thursday, May 7, he’ll be supporting Florence Dore at her record-release show at Cat’s Cradle Backroom; then on Sunday, May 17, he’s co-headlining the Not Another Music Festival at Botanist and Barrel in Cedar Grove. And later in June, he’ll be returning to the Romweber well, playing at the Cradle again as part of Dex Fest 2026.
And on top of all that busyness, he’s still a student at UNC: in between shows, he’s also wrapping up an honors thesis on the mid-century North Carolina music legend Tarheel Slim.
Bill Moore stopped by Live & Local to discuss the new album and play three songs: “Pale Imitation,” “Moonlight in the Mirror,” and “She Make Me Tremble.” Listen:
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