Spencer Moore — Cartoon Music Mystery Man

A number of composers are listed on different albums/reels of the Capitol Hi-Q library at the time Hanna-Barbera used it, and you can find a little bit of information about most of the more common ones on-line. John Seely’s name comes to mind first because he got a credit on the six Warners cartoons that used the same library. Bill Loose’s name is connected with him.

You’ve read on this blog about Phil Green and Geordie Hormel adding to the sound of the 1950’s H-B cartoons through their cues picked up by Capitol (Green from EMI, Hormel from Zephyr). But there’s one composer who is a complete mystery. A chap named Spencer Moore.

You have to dig deep in the BMI database to find him; he’s not in the composer index. And a hunt for him on-line will find a reference to his stock music being used in the movie Night of the Living Dead (from the Hi-Q ‘D’ series). And that’s it.

So, just who was this guy? Was the name a pseudonym for some other composer?

Well, yes. And no.

Eventually on the blog, I’m going to do a piece on the Hi-Q library itself, but I want to focus on Mr. Moore. Let us go back to Geordie Hormel and the founding of Zephyr Records. Billboard Magazine reveals this in its edition of May 12, 1956:

Hormel Forms Zephyr Disks
HOLLYWOOD—Geordie Hormel, jazz pianist scion of the meat packing clan, has organized Zephyr Records, with the firm expected to get under way via its first initial release by June 1.
The disk firm will also operate Zephyr Music Library to supply music for radio, television and commercial films, and Austin Music, Inc. (BMI). Officers of the corporation, in addition to Hormel, include Roy Anderson and Marilyn Vaile, both associated with the Hormel Foundation of Austin, Minn.
Spencer Moore has been named general manager of the company, with Bill Hitchkock [sic] to helm a repertoire post.

There was a small, brief flurry of articles about Zephyr in mid to late 1956. On July 16, Billboard revealed Hormel was attending a convention “along with the firm’s comptroller-library chief, Spencer Moore.”

So it would appear that Moore was a money guy in charge of the Zephyr Music Library, which provided cues for the new Capitol Hi-Q library.

Moore didn’t stay with Zephyr very long. Variety of May 24, 1957 reports Moore had left the company amid reports Hormel was going to streamline operations (he was looking to sell the label a month later; Variety reported by November it was defunct). Moore went back to the music rep business. Variety mentions him again on October 1, 1958 in connection with a global tour for Arwin Records.

Hormel, if nothing, was ambitious. Billboard of September 29, 1956 tells that five projects were in the works, including “radio station management, artist representation, and TV film, motion picture and legit theater production.”

He actually did get a film company going. Eventually. From Boxoffice Magazine, April 26, 1965:

Geordie Hormel, record producer-arranger, is branching out into motion picture production and distribution, having formed Cinema-One, with plans for a slate of six features during the first year.

And guess who went along for the ride? This is from Boxoffice, Feb. 20, 1967:

SPCA Documentary Set
HOLLYWOOD—The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been documented in a half-hour film produced by Pacific Newsreel, a subsidiary of Hormel Films. To be shown in 600 Human Society Branches, the film was produced by Geordie Hormel and directed by Spence Moore. Action scenes of the sheriff’s aero squadron using helicopters in a chase of a “slasher” is part of the color film.

So was Spencer Moore a money guy, composer and movie director? Well, the 1950 U.S. Census fills us in. It tells us he was a freelance writer and had moved from Westchester County, New York, to Los Angeles in 1949. He started, but never finished, grade 12. His 1949 income was only $1,000. The reason is revealed in several newspaper and trade publications of the day. Aline Mosby of the United Press wrote in her column of September 21, 1949 that Moore was going to star as himself in a semi-documentary about beating alcoholism, but not before some pretty tough times, including stretches in jail and drying out at Bellevue in New York (there’s no evidence the picture got out of the planning stage).

Moore was a graduate of St. Mary's School and Yonkers High School. At age 15, the Yonkers Herald-Statesman reported he got into a bit of trouble, discharging a .25 calibre gun into the tin roof of a house near his home, trying to hit a potato. In 1927, the local daily reported he has been hired as a clerk with the Quaker Lace Company on Fifth Avenue. He was 16. Census records in 1930 show he was in the engineering department of the city of New York, and a story in a 1936 edition of the Herald-Statesman said he had been on the paper's staff. The 1940 census records him as a helper with a moving van company, though his draft card that year lists his occupation as a freelance writer. He had sobered up by 1946, and we find him as director of publicity for the Phoenix Junior Police, organising a benefit starring Frank Sinatra; this was after a stint as editor of a Phoenix weekly. A story in the December 2, 1979 edition of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reveals he had retired from documentary filmmaking and was a community volunteer at the St. Vincent de Paul store in Rohnert Park.

A book from the U.S. Library of Congress called Performing Arts: Broadcasting has a wonderful section on stock music by the premier scholar on the subject, Paul Mandell, and contained therein is this pertinent information:

Some hotshots of Capitol were able to grab performance royalties by bankrolling music packages. George Hormel, a pianist related to the Hormel meatpacking empire, laid claim to Hi-Q music which he financed but did not write. Spencer Moore was another. Composer Nick Carras recalled the scene: “Moore made his money by bringing his investors to Capitol and putting his name on our music...”

Maybe he could write a note of music. Or three or four. But it seems pretty clear that Spencer Moore was mainly a crony of fun-loving millionaire Geordie Hormel. And because of that, his music can be heard on some of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

While Moore’s name is attached to different styles of music, H-B seems to have picked those with quirky violins, bassoons and horns.

L-75 is a string-and-woodwind melody that is very reminiscent of some of Hormel cues on Hi-Q; perhaps the same writer came up with it. L-85 was heard on only one cartoon, the nascent Pixie and Dixie adventure Little Bird Mouse. L-1158 is a collection of short bassoon pieces that were snipped and used as musical effects.

If you click on the name of the cue, it should download into your computer’s audio player.

L-75 COMEDY UNDERSCORE
L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE
L-80 COMEDY UNDERSCORE
L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE
L-85 LIGHT MECHANICAL
L-992 ANIMATION CHILDREN
L-1121 ANIMATION NAUTICAL
L-1147 ANIMATION MOVEMENT
L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY
L-1154 ANIMATION COMEDY
L-1158 ANIMATION COMEDY


He was also responsible for a version of this song heard in a Yogi Bear cartoon. It is from the Hi-Q “X” speciality reels. L-75 La MARSELLAISE

Moore is listed as the composer of L-31 SOMBER MOVEMENT, a “D” series cue that appeared in a couple of cartoons. I don’t have a copy. He is also credited with a piece of music with a double tom-tom beat in Yogi Bear’s Brave Little Brave. It’s very similar to his L-744 WESTERN MELODIC UNDERSCORE.

California state records show that Spencer Thomas Moore was born July 2, 1910 in New York and died in Sonoma, California, July 19, 1985.