by Bruce Buckner

Rev. Otis Moon is not a minister of the Gospel. I think he earned the title one night in a Honky Tonk. He was winding up a hot piano riff and some one in the audience hollered, "Preach on Rev!" (Sounded kinda cool. Embraced it.) He has been a designer and builder for most of his adult life. He says he is a carpenter that can draw. He has lived most of the last 40 years "on the road," doing jobs initially in OKC and central Oklahoma, then branching out to New York, Durango and Boston, Santa Fe, Nashville and Austin. He established long lasting musical relations in all but New York and Boston. So wherever he is working he is also doing music.

His major connection in Nashville is Jim Hoke, the extremely busy, multi-instrumentalist, sessions player. Every few years, for more than 25, Hoke has wanted major changes on his house. The Rev would come and live with the family for a few weeks or a few months, work on the house in the daytime, and refine and record his latest songs in the evenings and at night in Jim's basement studio (which the Rev built). The results were CALLED demos, but the best I can tell, he only made 3 cassette copies of each period. One he would give to me (his brother), one to our parents and one to keep and quickly lose. I would always make copies of my copy to give to friends and relatives. When a new batch would arrive I would blend the new ones in with the old to make a more comprehensive "collection."

Despite the fact that they were never demod to anyone, 4 of his songs were recorded during this period. In Austin Cornell Hurd, the LeRoi Bros, and T Tex Edwards recorded a song each because Otis was playing with or jammin' with them at some point. In Nashville, Hoke as "Hoke and His Orchestra" recorded another. Then a couple of years ago Hoke sent Otis 7 full DATs that contained most of their demos over the years. Having no idea what he was supposed to do with them, he gave them to me saying, "Here, you're my archivist, aren't you?" I had just gotten my first computer so I saved up the money to have the DATs transferred to CDs.

Soon I had made a "Deluxe" 4 CD set of his music to give to the same friends and relatives. Now I must tell you that I did not know any of his songs had been done and released by others until I got on the Internet. He never even mentioned it in passing. In my search for him in Google, I discovered Cornell Hurd's web site. On a lark I emailed him, told him who I was and what I had done and asked if he would like to hear a lot of Otis's stuff that he had never heard before. He wrote back saying he "certainly would - the man's a genius." Upon hearing them he wrote back saying that it was the best stuff he had heard in years, and that if I were to send a set to "this fan of mine in England" he could get it played on the radio over there. I sent the CDs to one Bryan Dee. When I first received and heard the segment of Golden Graham's radio show wherein he played 7 of Otis's songs in a row, and commenting that they were played from demos and that "we can only hope he will get back into the studio soon to record," I KNEW I had to do something REAL. I "read up on things," and asked Otis if I could be his publisher and ACTUALLY demo his music to the industry. He seemed mildly amused at the idea of someone wanting his music, but he consented. The first task was to legalize and "register" it all.

Otis does not read music and is dyslexic to boot. As a result the lyrics had never been written out. I was shocked, but most pleased when he consented to typing out the lyrics to 80 or so songs, some nearly 30 yrs old. With the digitalizing and legalizing done, I registered with BMI and subscribed to Row Fax. Otis does not read music and is dyslexic, to boot. As a result the lyrics to his songs had never been written down. I was shocked but most pleased when he consented to typing out the lyrics to 90 songs, some 30 years old. With the digitizing and legalizing done, I registered with BMI and subscribed to Row Fax, Nashvilles major publication for song pitching, and Elephino Publishing was off and running. After pitching for a year to over 50 artists requesting songs through Row Fax, I realized that Rev was right about ONE thing, no one wanted to record his songs, BUT he was wrong about another thing, people all over the world LOVE them. Our CD distributor has gone out of business so for awhile we will fill orders for CDs from this site.

Thank you for your support,

Bruce Buckner.

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